''The Middle Ground'' is a 1980 novel by British novelist
Margaret Drabble
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, (born 5 June 1939) is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.
Drabble's books include '' The Millstone'' (1965), which won the following year's John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and '' Je ...
. It is her ninth published novel.
The novel explores the "crisis of British urban life" through the eyes of a middle aged journalist, Kate Armstrong.
Several critics compare the narrative to Virginia Woolf's ''
Mrs Dalloway
''Mrs Dalloway'' is a novel by Virginia Woolf published on 14 May 1925. It details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional upper-class woman in post-First World War England.
The working title of ''Mrs Dalloway'' was ''The Hours ...
,'' with critic Roberta Rubenstein calling the novel "essentially plotless" instead exploring human relationships in a particular time and space.
Intertextuality
The novel contains long reflections on Kate's past; several critics describe these reflections as similar to ''
Mrs. Dalloway''.
''Kirkus Review''s describes the same stylistic features, writing that the novel is "Told almost completely in a series of ruminations (Kate's and her friends'), the book has a vulnerable, occasionally fey, but almost consistently charming lurch to it."
The novel also has episodes that give homage to
Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French language, French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Pas ...
.
Critic Roberta Rubenstien suggest that the title of the novel likely refers to
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
's ''
The Middle Years.''
Reception
The novel had mixed reception. ''The New York Times'' reviewer Phyllis Rose, described the novel as part of Drabble's chronicling of 20th century British culture, comparing her to Dickens and Balzac, though in doing so it is a "faltering step in her development".
However, Rose had mixed feelings about the novel's treatment, describing it as focusing too much on commentary, writing "it hurts the novel that it is so mercilessly topical."
Margaret Forster
Margaret Forster (25 May 1938 – 8 February 2016) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian and critic, best known for the 1965 novel ''Georgy Girl'', made into a successful film of the same name, which inspired a hit song by T ...
called the novel "not a novel but a sociological treatise".
''Kirkus Reviews'' gave praise for the novel, writing "with each succeeding novel, Drabble appears to edge ever closer to being E. M. Forster's heir: rich works, turned and molded by helpless circumstance, about the apprehensions and redemptions of staying responsible."
Further reading
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Middle Ground
1980 British novels
Novels by Margaret Drabble
Weidenfeld & Nicolson books