This must all come from a writer on her best behaviour. The signs of nervousness are everywhere, from dutifully reporting what David Lodge said once about Bakhtin to the weird fixation on posh subjunctives. There's a sentence beginning, 'That Dickens now chose to' on practically every page. There is the sense of duty, of having to cover the ground conscientiously and not frighten the reader off with anything eccentric or individual. The only sign at all of what must be a serious passion for and a profound engagement with Dickens comes when she quotes him, which she does brilliantly, showing him at full stretch. She does see; but for some unfathomable reason, she has written a book which anyone could have written.

I must say, I never thought I would have to be unkind about a book by Jane Smiley, and I hope never to be so again. Only someone of the highest merits can exasperate a reader to this degree, and, my goodness, you want to know how Dickens has shaped Jane Smiley into the wonderful novelist she now is. Instead, we find ourselves listening to the startlingly unoriginal insight that Little Dorrit 'is an exceptionally dark view of human nature'. Let's all forget about it as quickly as possible.

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