ELIZABETH FOX-GENOVESE
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the characters. The ambiguity of that schizoid third person remains,
but has been transferred from the interstices of the novel to the
relationship between author and novel. The emergence of the author's
voice, however, confirms rather than elucidates the problematical
quality of the relationship between truth and fiction. Drabble's pur–
poseful artifice accentuates the gap between her intellectual, literary
preoccupation and her involvement with her subject matter, producing
a neutralization most clearly manifested in the gossipy, patterned
speech of author and characters alike. The weighted words fit smoothly
into the endless flow of talk (the author chats when her characters fall
silent) without foregrounding. "I often think I'm a foul bitch, you
know," says Rose, "pleasantly, conversationally," in
The Needle's Eye
(366). Janet Bird thinks with equal conversational delicacy of knives in
people's backs. Desperation, jealousy, self-complacency, violence,
death flit through the aging schoolgirl chatter.
Technically, Drabble achieves stylistic uniformity through the use
of everyday words-the occasional swear word, the occasional esoteric
reference fit into, rather than stand out from the flow. The early novels
rely mainly on short sentences; the later ones feature much longer
sentences, but compound rather than complex. Drabble links clauses,
like items on a shopping list, with "and" after "and," or, in
The
Needle's Eye
especially, by an arbitrary substitution of colons. Even in
her conjunctions she steers shy of emphasis and causation. Her prose,
like her explicit statements, turns connection into coincidence. And she
reinforces the impression of natural continuous sequence by a charac–
teristic repetition of words and phrases from one sentence or clause to
the next in such a way that the incantative padding of the verbal
duplication builds up an atmosphere of ease and familiarity-a
conversational, ordinary cushioning against the emotions and the
events. Rose and Simon thus chat about the ambitions of Eileen, a
neighborhood girl, who had run off, leaving her illegitimate baby to
her mother, who, obliged to earn a living, was leaving it to Rose. What
ambitions had she, asks Simon. "Oh God knows, I'm sure she didn't
know. She wanted to be a Spanish duchess, or a wicked woman, or a
make-up girl at the BBG And she hadn't a hope in hell of being any of
them. It's enough to make anybody sulky. She'll be back, I expect.
She'll stay away a day or two, and then she'll be back. " Who, queries
Simon, was the father? "She wouldn't tell. Well, actually, she did tell ,
she told me, but
I
promised not to tell. But I don 't suppose telling you
would count, would it? She'd probably like to think of me telling
someone like you. He's a boy in a garage in Stoke Newington."
The passage exemplifies Drabble's stylistic skill in the particular,
