Books: Crack in the Teacup

THE LONG VIEW (320 pp.)—Elizabeth Jane Howard—Reynal ($3.75).

Women's instinct for tidiness inclines to deprive them of the power of making a true reminiscence. Dust and unsuitable objects are often removed from the rooms in which they choose to display the bric-a-brac and furniture of their lives. The bedroom, especially, is tidy after the event.

But for this fact, the novel The Long View might be a work of art. Its theme—the defeat of the ingrown English middle class—has been needleworked by such skilled knitters and tatters as Ivy (Men and Wives) Compton-Burnett and Elizabeth (The House in Paris) Bowen. The Long View...