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Article: Clara Hopgood, Chess and Generalship.
- Article from:
- ANQ
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lorraine Davies, in a new and much needed edition of Mark Rutherford's Clara Hopgood (the notes are especially welcome; the introduction, perceptive and stimulating), discusses the vexed question of the title and structure of the novel:
Compared with the "drama" of Madge's opening [story], Clara's story emerges
as relatively insubstantial. One contemporary reviewer complained that
Clara, "who is presumably meant to be the heroine, is not adequately
expounded"; another, that the story only touches on Clara "indirectly," so
that the reader might "wonder whether the title is not a misnomer"; yet
another asserts that "the story of `Clara Hopgood' is ...