Smiley, Jane - Claire Messud (review date 19 May 1995)

Claire Messud (review date 19 May 1995)

SOURCE: “Pigging Out with the Professors,” in Guardian, May 19, 1995, p. 7.

[In the following review, Messud lauds the variety and wit of Smiley's Moo.]

In spite of its absurdities, or perhaps because of them, ours is an age which accords the greatest literary respect to the most sober stories. With rare exceptions—Confessions of Zeno and A House for Mr Biswas come to mind—this century's most acclaimed fiction does not occasion much laughter.

So it is a cause for celebration that Jane Smiley has turned her talents to comedy. Smiley is, incontestably, a serious writer. From her first novel, Barn Blind, she has beautifully and precisely catalogued the bitter intimacy of human relationships, the universality of misunderstanding and grief. Her Pulitzer prize-winning triumph, A Thousand Acres; adapted the greatest tragic narrative, reworking Lear in the...

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