As a devoted Smith fan, it pains me to say that everything that makes Stevie Smith a compelling and original poet seems to work against her as a novelist. NOYP is too cute, too self-consciously experimental, and terribly dated.
In contrast to Stevie Smith's poetry this reads
as a book of its time,
England in the 1930's,
whereas the poems are more timeless and
general in their grasp of the Human Condition.
Certainly the Human Condition is here in the novel
but it is sometimes dated and narrow.
This book is definitely not for those who love straight-forward plots and prose. The book reads like a poem.
I liked Stevie Smith's Novel on Yellow Paper, and who knows--I may just love it once I've lived with it a bit longer. It reminds me of what James Joyce and T.
Was uncertain about this one at first-- but then, all of a sudden in the last third, I fell in love.
