Recent critics, such as Barbara Brothers
and Beauman
, have re-read the novel for its focus on the portrayal of women and their lives in fiction, to find it one of Kennedy's more substantive and...
Literary responses
Margaret Kennedy
The Times Literary Supplement reviewer described the ending as one of terror and hopeless tragedy.
qtd. in
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann, 1983.
86
Brothers
, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, judges Kennedy's attempts to foreground social dilemmas as ultimately...
Literary responses
Margaret Kennedy
Brothers
does not agree with this perception of humour: she finds that while the characters and the situation seem made for comedy . . . instead of comedy Kennedy writes a banal, tragic melodrama.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
36
Literary responses
Margaret Kennedy
Brothers
observes how MK
's use of multiple voices through which to narrate the novel make[s] for rounded characters and build[s] suspense.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
36
The Feast was both a Literary Guild Society choice and a Book...
Literary responses
Margaret Kennedy
Friend and fellow author Marghanita Laski
praised the novel, and specifically MK
's depiction of Oxford
life through the flashbacks that Lucy and her best friend, Melissa, have on their university days. The novel was...
Literary responses
Margaret Kennedy
Brothers
finds these novels often over-ambitious.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
36
Literary responses
Margaret Kennedy
Brothers
sees MK
's work as an apology for her own fiction and an attack upon critics and reviewers who would dismiss her as being merely a popular writer.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
36
Textual Features
Margaret Kennedy
While Kennedy seriously engages with social and gender issues, once again exploring, through Florence, the woman's dilemma in marriage, the action and tone of the novel is at times melodramatic. Dictionary of Literary Biography author...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Brothers, Barbara, and Julia Gergits, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 166. Gale Research, 1996.
Brothers, Barbara, and Julia Gergits, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 174. Gale Research, 1997.