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Unlikely and unlikeable

Although well written, I found it hard to keep going with this book. There are numerous long descriptive sections (for example, pages and pages were taken up in describing a squash game) in which I lost interest. The high level of introspection was somewhat unconvincing. And the characters, apart from Baxter and Grammaticus, were dull and complacent. I found Perowne's children particularly unlikely and unlikeable.

I was interested to read that the central character, Perowne, preferred William James to his "fussy brother" Henry, because the latter would "run round a thing a dozen different ways than call it by its name". This was much the way I found this book. Good editing could perhaps reduce it to a short story of some merit, but as a full length novel, it is weak.