"It is cliche by now that emotive and elocutionary power has shifted from the novel to electronic media. The cliche, however, should not make us deaf to its own particular hum and buzz. Eleven years ago, I noted in these pages that nineteenth century novels 'circumvented the culteral limitations imposed on public and private discourse. Thoughts that could not be spoken of - between the husband and wife, mother and daughter - found their voice in fictional creations.' The voice persists, but now seems hopelessly muted; no one expects novels to possess the culteral resonance that writers and readers could once take for granted. This, to be sure, is regrettable, but as with the portrait or the sonesta or the symphony, all we can expect from novels are variations on a form."

- Arthur Crystal, Harper's Magazine, June 2007, p.4.