This engrossing, masterly novel ["The Transit of Venus"] is shaped with an admirable blend of substance and economy. It combines the satisfaction of a family saga (minus the longueurs) with a highly structured plot reminiscent of Greek tragedy, with its sense of doom and its implied acceptance of larger patterns beyond an individual's fate.

[The] novel is filled with a rich constellation of complex human beings whose patterns shift, diverge, resolve, fade out, or become part of other orbits throughout the years. (p. 7)

Shirley Hazzard has even managed to forge a sort of "godlike grammar" to contain her ambitious design. This is reflected in her precise, frequently elliptical style and in a certain distanced outlook, the "godlike" overview that spots the movements of people, then picks out and connects the salient details over a fast-moving, curved sweep of time. (pp. 16-17)