(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
No one, I think, would describe reading Ivy Compton-Burnett as easy. However, once you have plunged in, you gradually begin to get your bearings, and then the fun begins. For these novels are indeed – for all the seething tensions, vicious power struggles and murderous resentments – comedies. Comedies of the darkest hue – featuring all manner of dastardly deeds, up to and including murder – but comedies none the less. They might even make you laugh (they do me) – more with a shocked gasp than a hearty chuckle, but it’s laughter all the same. The comedy comes partly from the contrast between all that endlessly refined dialogue and the baseness and dark emotions that drive it, and partly from the author’s shameless use of the creakiest plot contrivances. But of course it’s pointless trying to analyse comedy – far better to dive in and read.
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