The Pardoner's Tale tells the stories of two men, both "forty-ish", who cannot help falling madly in love, sometimes despairingly, sometimes with great success. The lineaments of gratified desire are persuasively drawn. Precise details of plot and character dissolve into an amorous haze, spreading delight….

The two stories are ingeniously linked…. [The] linking method has been deliberately designed to make it difficult for John Wain's narrative to carry conviction, to suspend the reader's disbelief: he has met this self-imposed challenge and succeeded triumphantly….

We remember [Chaucer's] pardoner, the "full vicious man" who could tell "a moral tale", and priggishly accused others of riggishness so that they would guiltily buy his pardons. The ambiguities of the title offer a field for enjoyable speculation. Perhaps Giles, the novelist, is a sort of pardoner: certainly, he brings about the resolution of Gus's story in a spirit of forgiveness. Perhaps, the dying old lady is as vicious as Chaucer's pardoner, when she tells the story of her life: certainly, she has no concept of forgiveness. At any rate, John Wain's novel is written in a warmly forgiving spirit; and this, together with its engaging riggishness, contributes to the reader's delight.