Elizabeth Jane Howard is undoubtedly an intelligent and talented writer. I recently read and enjoyed one of her other novels, 'After Julius'. I like 'The Long View' too. There is much to admire in it. It's a sensitive and insightful account of the breakdown of a marriage. But I don't think it's the classic that professional critics and other novelists, such as Hilary Mantel (who contributes an introduction to the Picador Classics edition that I have just read), seem to think it is. For me, it has one major failing: the author is sometimes unable to convert her clearly highly developed emotional intelligence into authentic, realistic dialogue. There are many occasions when characters - often the principal protagonists, Conrad and Antonia Fleming, but others too - simply think or speak in a way which seems forced and contrived. That is true of 'After Julius' too. But it was less pronounced there, to the extent that I did not feel that it overwhelmed the story. In 'The Long View', however, it's a distinct problem and marred my enjoyment of the book to a considerable extent. Here are some examples from Part Two of the novel. un libro molto femminile, e non è privo dei cliché su crisi di coppia e relazioni adultere. Però questo "lungo sguardo" mi è sembrato posarsi con intelligenza, e in certe parti l'ho seguito con la stessa tensione e lo stesso pathos che fa provare un thriller. This quotation is the very definition of the writing style in this book. Is this entire book a stream of consciousness from Mr. Fleming?

The Chronicles were a family saga "about the ways in which English life changed during the war years, particularly for women." They follow three generations of a middle-class English family and draw strongly from Howard's own life and memories. [7] The first four volumes, The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off, were published from 1990 to 1995. Howard wrote the fifth, All Change (2013), in one year; it was her final novel. Millions of copies of the Cazalet Chronicles were sold worldwide. [1] She passionately wanted to be regarded ‘for herself’ as women say, which means for some elusive attraction which they do not feel they possess. She had acted in Stratford as a girl, and she would have liked what the day offered: the dark wintry river, the swans gliding by, and behind rain-streaked windows, new dramas in formation: human shadows, shuffling and whispering in the dimness, hoping – by varying and repeating their errors – to edge closer to getting it right. In Jane’s novels, the timid lose their scripts, the bold forget their lines, but a performance, somehow, is scrambled together; heads high, hearts sinking, her characters head out into the dazzle of circumstance. Every phrase is improvised and every breath a risk. The play concerns the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of love. Standing ovations await the brave.” Hilary Mantel on EJH They [mother and daughter] seemed two women bound together, having in common nothing in particular, and everything in general; who, were they not related, would not willingly have spent five minutes in each other’s company; but who, because of their relationship, had spent nineteen years, irritating, modifying, interfering with, decryring, and depending upon each other.Howard, who died at 90 in 2014, became far from innocent, marrying three times and having a string of lovers, including her first husband’s brother, Arthur Koestler, Ken Tynan, Laurie Lee, Cyril Connolly, and Cecil Day-Lewis. Perhaps all those lovers were the result of a sort of innocence. The book has an autobiographical feel. Toni begins as a complete innocent about male female relationships, as is, 30 years later, the woman that Mrs Fleming’s son is to marry. Her daughter is less innocent in that she has become pregnant, but it’s surely innocence as well as foolishness that leads her to go off with the old, loving boyfriend. Perhaps all women (and all men?) begin in state of innocence still, but I think that the position of women has changed radically—it is perhaps the biggest change of the last century. Anthony Thwaite (9 November 2002). "When will Miss Howard take off all her clothes?". The Guardian . Retrieved 1 November 2010.

She wrote a book of short stories, Mr. Wrong (1975), and edited two anthologies, including The Lover's Companion (1978). [1] Autobiography and biographies [ edit ] a b c Beauman, Nicola (3 January 2014). "Elizabeth Jane Howard: Writer". The Independent . Retrieved 17 February 2018. June Stoker would soon be introduced to a company which had long ceased to discover anything new about themselves likely to increase either their animation or their intimacy.

Cooper, Jonathan (23 April 1990). "Novelist Martin Amis Carries on a Family Tradition: Scathing Wit and Supreme Self-Confidence". People . Retrieved 15 June 2012.