Strong Poison - Literary Significance and Criticism

Literary Significance and Criticism

...highest among the masterpieces. It has the strongest possible element of suspense — curiosity and the feeling one shares with Wimsey for Harriet Vane. The clues, the enigma, the free-love question, and the order of telling could not be improved upon. As for the somber opening, with the judge's comments on how to make an omelet, it is sheer genius.

Read more about this topic:  Strong Poison

Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:

    “I shall christen this style the Mandarin, since it is beloved by literary pundits, by those who would make the written word as unlike as possible to the spoken one. It is the style of all those writers whose tendency is to make their language convey more than they mean or more than they feel, it is the style of most artists and all humbugs.”
    —Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)

    “The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
    —Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    “It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
    —Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)