Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Cozzens, James Gould (Vol. 92) - Richard G. Stern (review date Winter 1958)

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Richard G. Stern (review date Winter 1958)

SOURCE: "A Perverse Fiction," in The Kenyon Review, Vol. XX, No. 1, Winter, 1958, pp. 140-44.

[Stern is an educator, critic, novelist, and short story writer whose books include Golk (1960) and Collected Stories (1988). In the following unfavorable review of By Love Possessed, Stern faults the novel's structure, literary style, and character development.]

The form of James Cozzens' latest novel is that of The Ambassadors: the book is organized around a central consciousness, an intelligent, middle-aged man who participates more or less directly in actions the evaluation of which leads to revaluation of his own experience and principles. A fine pattern for a novel, and one which Cozzens has successfully followed—though not so strictly—in Men and Brethren (1936), Ask Me Tomorrow (1940), and The Just and the Unjust (1942). Unfortunately, the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. George J. Becker (review date June 1949)
   2. Martin Price (review date Autumn 1957)
   3. Benjamin De Mott (essay date Winter 1957)
   4. Richard G. Stern (review date Winter 1958)
   5. Frederick Bracher (essay date 1959)
   6. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 6 May 1965)
   7. John Brooks (review date 25 August 1968)
   8. John Updike (review date 2 November 1968)
   9. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 30 January 1969)
   10. James A. Epperson (review date 8 December 1978)
   11. Robert Scholes (essay date 1979)
   12. Colin S. Cass (essay date Fall 1981)
   13. Irving Malin (essay date Winter 1981)
   14. Terry Teachout (review date 28 February 1986)
   15. Richard A. Posner (essay date 1988)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright