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This wasn’t that long a book (140 pp), but the laboriously-constructed sentences made it seem that way. I thought the plot line was extremely clever, however. I’ve read three other books by Ms. West and I liked one of them (The Fountain Overflows, 1956) and either disliked (Harriet Hume, 1929) or was meh (This Real Night, published posthumously 1984) about the others. Having said that, I probably should continue to read her for William Shawn, then editor-in-chief of the New Yorker when learning about her death said this “Rebecca West was one of the giants and will have a lasting place in English literature. No one in this century wrote more dazzling prose, or had more wit, or looked at the intricacies of human character and the ways of the world more intelligently�.

This was a novel about World War One and a soldier who came home from it, having been wounded and suffering from profound amnesia. He can’t remember his wife, Kitty, he can barely remember his cousin, the narrator of the book, Jenny, but he can remember his first love from 15 years ago, who predated Kitty, Margaret. And he still loves her. The last sentence of the synopsis on the back of the book (reissue by Virago Modern Classics): ‘The women have a choice: to leave him as he is or to ‘cure� him...�

Sadie Jones wrote the Afterword of this novel. I have her first book, ‘The Outcast�, short-listed for the Orange Prize of 2008. Now I just have to read it.

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