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71st out of 90 books
—
14 voters
Time Will Darken It
Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King more and more frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.
Paperback, 368 pages
Published
February 4th 1997
by Vintage
(first published 1948)
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I love "Time Will Darken It." I am, to borrow a word from the book's back cover, besotted with it. It likes me; it is not entirely sure that love exists, but it is warm toward me, from a distance — the world is a harsh place but it projects more indifference than malice.
William Maxwell was one of America's clearest, sparest, most graceful writers, and "Time Will Darken It" is his masterpiece. Reading Maxwell is like sitting on a porch with a cold glass of water in your hand and all day to drink...more
William Maxwell was one of America's clearest, sparest, most graceful writers, and "Time Will Darken It" is his masterpiece. Reading Maxwell is like sitting on a porch with a cold glass of water in your hand and all day to drink...more
Amazing writing. Compassion. Heart.
We need more of this in contemporary fiction. More compassion. What an amazing writer. His insight, detail and careful prose grabbed me. His empathy and grace would not let me go.
I could not put this down.
We need more of this in contemporary fiction. More compassion. What an amazing writer. His insight, detail and careful prose grabbed me. His empathy and grace would not let me go.
I could not put this down.
Maxwell's Time Will Darken It is among the most rewarding and satisfying reading experiences I have ever had. His characters are wonderfully made. With sparse style and grace he captures the quiet spaces of day-to-day living, the in-between areas in which lives unfold. The novel is also among the best depictions of the interiors of marriage I have encountered, with the intricacies of the interatctions between Nora and Austin, awaiting their second child and besieged by the visitation of distant...more
1 like · like · see review
William Maxwell. Time Will Darken It. New York: Vintage Books, 1948.
Maxwell must have understood people well. His characters’ thoughts and reactions are believable. I expect it with the male characters, but his women and female children are also convincing. That type of understanding and respect reminds me of Andre Dubus. For both of these authors, I would sometimes forget that the characters were created by a male author.
There is a dark side of people that Maxwell handles subtlely. He did it i...more
Maxwell must have understood people well. His characters’ thoughts and reactions are believable. I expect it with the male characters, but his women and female children are also convincing. That type of understanding and respect reminds me of Andre Dubus. For both of these authors, I would sometimes forget that the characters were created by a male author.
There is a dark side of people that Maxwell handles subtlely. He did it i...more
We have here a lovely portrait of a youngish middle class couple in a small town in Illinois in 1912. Social customs are observed, racial lines are respected, and the differences between men and women are poignant and quietly, patiently tragic.
Remember: Your great-grandparents, and their parents, too, were once young and full of ideals and energy. They didn't always fall in love with the right people. They didn't always love the people they married. Sometimes, they wished they'd made other choi...more
Remember: Your great-grandparents, and their parents, too, were once young and full of ideals and energy. They didn't always fall in love with the right people. They didn't always love the people they married. Sometimes, they wished they'd made other choi...more
I just had one of those moments when you pick up a book by chance, written by an author you've never heard of, and the results are quietly astonishing. Maxwell's powers of description are transporting, and the characters he creates indelible. This is a quiet book, set in turn-of-the-last century Illinois, about a small-town lawyer living in his father's shadow, who invites his shirt-tail southern relatives to stay with him and his newly-pregnant wife, one summer before the war to end all wars. C...more
This is a wonderful book by a great author whom I feel has not received the recognition he deserves. Although perhaps best known for the award winning So Long, See You Tomorrow, Maxwell's masterpiece may be this novel about the effect a visiting set of relatives has on a family, their friends and neighbors. Maxwell is a master at creating characters, both male and female. He also has a deft hand in placing these characters in a certain time and place. I felt I could walk through the door of the...more
There's something about this author - he just sets a mood, time, and place that I am immediately drawn into. My quibble with this book was there just were too many major scenes that took place "offstage". The author would set up a scene and then leave it to the reader's imagination, or he would commence a new scene and refer to something that happened, but which he doesn't fully explain. I can go along with a certain amount of that, but there were one or two times I really wanted to be there whe...more
Imagine, if you will, a narrative centered on Michael Bluth, only plunged backwards a century and with all wit and comedy replaced with tragedy and... tragedy. What remains is the story of a bourgeois pillar of the community whose total inability to disappoint anyone or to shrug off expectations leads to disaster after disaster. This is a very slow-moving slow burner of a slow character study that slowly grinds toward its depressingly understated climax, but what a tragic climax it is. Ooof.
Also...more
Jun 08, 2011
Thing Two
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
books-you-might-have-missed
I really enjoyed reading this! It wasn't a page turner the way So Long, See You Tomorrow was, but the writing was wonderful, and it left me with questions to which I had to go find answers. It is on my list as a potential book club selection - lots of interesting characters with interesting motivations, etc.
The story is set in a small town in the mid-west in the early 20th century. The writing is superb. Maxwell does a marvelous job with his characters. It started off slowly, but picked up and...more
The story is set in a small town in the mid-west in the early 20th century. The writing is superb. Maxwell does a marvelous job with his characters. It started off slowly, but picked up and...more
A wonderful read that I could not put down. His characters are never truly one thing or another. Like many of us in the world they have shades of good, bad, petulance, tolerance, and pasts that shape them. And like real life, we never truly know where it is going.
Why did it take a bookseller to tell me about this novel? Why isn't Maxwell ranked up there with other great American writers of the 20th century?
Why did it take a bookseller to tell me about this novel? Why isn't Maxwell ranked up there with other great American writers of the 20th century?
I come away from every William Maxwell book more stunned that hasn't become part of the American cannon. His writing is flawless. This is a book all about unrequited love, and, as is always the case, he deals with the subject honestly and sensitively. I can't say a single bad thing about this book it's wonderful. I'll never stopped being amazed by his ability to define and contextualize life's experiences and the people we share them with.
The characters in this novel slowly draw the reader in until one cannot put the book down. The author understands and portrays the foibles of early twentieth century people in a small town in a sympathetic way. Forty years as fiction editor of The New Yorker must have been stimulating for him.
Mar 18, 2012
!Tæmbuŝu
marked it as to-read
KOBOBOOKS
Reviewed by The Guardian (16 Mar 2012)
Reviewed by The Guardian (16 Mar 2012)
A fantastic book! Maxwell's power lies in his ability to transition between the specific and the general, moving from the domestic minutia of a family in early 20th century Draperville, Illinois to thrilling abstractions that link these intimacies to general truths on a much larger scale. Totally impressed by this book and excited to read more of what Maxwell has to offer.
I think the only people who will appreciate this book are writers, or character study enthusiasts. I am neither and was completely bored the entire book. Maybe this is a representation of the inner workings of traditional family life? Who knows....all I know is that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone I know. Not to say the author isn't talented...simply I don't appreciate this kind of story telling.
William Maxwell needs a better publicist. He can really paint a place and its people with words. Movingly to boot.
An overlooked classic, period.
To borrow from Eudora Welty's review of the book: "Maxwell's sensitive prose is the good and careful tool of an artist who is always doing exactly what he means to do. The careful, meditative examination of unfolding relationships among people of several sorts and ages - all interesting - has Mr. Maxwell's expected integrity, and the story's quiet and accumulating power a dark and disturbing beauty that has some of its roots, at least, in fine restraint."
If you enj...more
To borrow from Eudora Welty's review of the book: "Maxwell's sensitive prose is the good and careful tool of an artist who is always doing exactly what he means to do. The careful, meditative examination of unfolding relationships among people of several sorts and ages - all interesting - has Mr. Maxwell's expected integrity, and the story's quiet and accumulating power a dark and disturbing beauty that has some of its roots, at least, in fine restraint."
If you enj...more
Maxwell is a newly discovered author for me - I definitely liked this one, though not as much as They Came Like Swallows and So Long See You Tomorrow
I hoped to like this book better given the stature of the author in the literary world. Characters were flat, except for the main character who was hopelessly naive in his relationships. Story moved too slowly. Not a page turner.
Great book, great book.
Set in the early part of the twentieth century, this is the story of a man who unwittingly unleashes devastating results on his personal and professional life. When the Potters, who are very, very distantly related to Austin King, invite themselves to travel from Mississippi to Illinois to visit the King family for an extended stay, he reluctantly agrees. William Maxwell is able to portray the characters and the subtle plot development with the clarity that defines his skill as a writer. The end...more
Mar 02, 2013
Ayelet Waldman
added it
Perfect prose.
Maxwell's book is principally a character study, set in Illinois at the turn of the 20th century. Austin King is a respectable lawyer, whom, together with his wife Martha, welcomes a visit from their Southern cousins, the Potters, which will forever change the way he considers his own life; and the Potters theirs.
The writing is rather oblique at times, but taken as a whole, this is very much part of the book's charm. A wonderful, multi-layered period piece.
The writing is rather oblique at times, but taken as a whole, this is very much part of the book's charm. A wonderful, multi-layered period piece.
Even with the author's wonderful writing, this book drags in the beginning and I almost quit reading it. It finally picked up and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of it. Set in 1912, the author makes wry observations of the way Americans lived and related to one another. I especially like the way he refers to gossipers as "historians". I think many people will quit reading this book because of it's slow start, but I thought the last part was a page turner.
This is the second William Maxwell book I have read this year and it is just wonderful. Reminds me a bit of Winesburg, Ohio and the novels of Sinclair Lewis. It's a book about small town life in Illinois just prior to World War I. I am about two thirds of the way through right now. I am amazed that I am just learning of William Maxwell, because from what I have read so far he ranks with the best American authors of the 20th century.
This is such a fine novel that it blows many of its contemporaries right out of the water. Set in a small Illinois town in the early 20th century, this is a novel of a family visited by relatives from Mississippi, and how the experience tests the integrity of a marriage and friendship. Maxwell focuses on the inner workings of human thought and reaction. The prose is marvelous, and makes you wish for more books like this.
A quiet, steady work about the vastness of small worlds, in this case, about the universe within one marriage. Maxwell is spare and sculpted somehow despite his elongated sentences. His prose is dazzlingly synesthesic. I have read so many books because of Autumn Haag and this is another excellent one. The brilliant title alone should compel one to read it.
This book was pretty slow moving, but I enjoyed the author's perceptive, insightful, and poetic writing. The book gained momentum in a subtle yet artful way, giving real depth and dimension to the characters and a rich portrayal of human nature.
Sep 20, 2009
Mikki
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
A Reader With Patience
Shelves:
lit-north-america
Maxwell is the gentlest of writers. No filler here--spare but yet so descriptive. Each sentence being so precise and controlled that you don't even realize where he's quietly taking you until you've suddenly arrived.
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William Keepers Maxwell Jr. was an American novelist, and fiction editor at the New Yorker. He studied at the University of Illinois and Harvard University. Maxwell wrote six highly acclaimed novels, a number of short stories and essays, children's stories, and a memoir, Ancestors (1972).
His award-winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has r...more
More about William Maxwell...
His award-winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has r...more
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Dec 02, 2009 12:39pm