[In "The Honours Board"] as in so many middling-good English novels …, a tidy group of characters has been summoned for some contrived, artificial reason made recognizable immediately by a series of deftly executed but superficial gestures—and assigned roles to play, virtues to represent, some outlandish deviancy to display or endure ("kleptomania!" "suicide!" "alcoholism!") without their really having much to do with each other—a congeries of ciphers to be pointed at, exhibited, stage-managed. Even a character whose part is thoroughly ordinary—the Annicks' daughter Penelope, for example, a nice girl really, has an antique shop, recently lost her husband, you know—has a large pasteboard sign suspended from her neck reading "Indecision," with subtitle: "Young widow, may try one or two men, this or that job, or even toy with the notion of a luxurious titled marriage, before making the right choice." (Who is, of course, the terribly devoted young master of obscure origins, a rough exterior and a heart of gold.)

All the same, there are modest rewards in this unassuming little novel, small touches that persuade absolutely by their accuracy of insight. The only schoolboy who is realized as a character (the rest being merely plastic fixtures) goes through a cruel battery of qualifying exams while ill, and both his agonies and those of Annick, suffering along with him, are compelling. But the fine moments are too few, the faultless observations too minuscule, and though admirable, altogether unsurprising.

That's the source of disappointment. In addition to being a critic who has seriously pondered the nature and mysteries of the novel, Miss Hansford Johnson has been an accomplished practitioner of the art, the author of eight previous novels, the most recent of them a novel of impressive range and some depth. Yet here she takes no chances, and in consequence achieves no surprises—which is to say no illuminations, nothing that extends her scope or our awareness. Everything is exactly where it should be, where we knew it would be, because that's where we last saw it, where it has always been.