The Gates of Ivory

Margaret Drabble is a literary genius. Her Headeland Trilogy, of which THE GATES OF IVORY is the concluding volume, is one of the great literary accomplishments of the late twentieth century. In it, an entire world--the global village itself--is analyzed, along with its problems, through the eyes and stories of a myriad of engaging, three-dimensional characters.Because her stories have a substantially feminine focus; because Drabble's prose and work as a whole requires sustained attention to detail in order to perceive the interconnections and ramifications; because her styles of writing aren't as flashy as those of Rushdie (et al.); because she isn't intellectually fashionable (lord knows why); because she's a Brit and not an American; because her sister's less enduring but more popular/academic work sometimes overshadows her own; because she's relentlessly normal as opposed to brash, odd, or glitzy: all these possibilities still do not excuse the reading public as a whole from their general lack of attention to Drabble's stunning accomplishments as a novelist. Read THE RADIANT WAY, A NATURAL CURIOSITY, and THE GATES OF IVORY and be the first on your block to recognize Drabble as Nobel-prize material!

Gates of Ivory is perhaps Margaret Drabble's most difficult novel because it weaves back and forth between London and Cambodia, between "Good Time" and "Bad Time." However, amidst social commentary, Drabble's humor comes through, and the ending is reminiscent of the ending of Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway." I cannot do this novel justice in a short, quickly-written review. I can only strongly recommend that you read it.