I have been wanting to read Ivy Compton-Burnett since reading Virginia Woolf's diaries, in which she wrote that she was kept awake at night by the fact that her own writing was "much inferior to the bitter truth and intense originality of Miss Compton-Burnett."The Present and the Past has a plot that is almost entirely guided by dialog, forcing the reader to focus on characters and become as intensely involved in personal analysis as they do. Sometimes it feels like roaming through the brain of an obsessive-compulsive, becoming trapped in feedback loops of anxiety and second-guessing oneself. Ultimately, though, this is a book about narcissism, how the way we see ourselves differs greatly from the ways in which we are seen, and how our perceptions predictably change after someone has died. If you are more interested in dialog than description, and don't mind becoming immersed in the often agonizing ruminations of ordinary people, you will love this book.
There's little in the novel to situate the action in a specific place or time, so I had the house on a huge space station and the characters, looking like extras from a 1980s Visage video, all shiny make up and ridiculous hair, standing on hovering platforms that moved forward every time they wanted to speak, which they did in a monotone (think Queen Amidala in Star Wars). It worked very well, better than if I'd had them walking around in Hertfordshire. It's that sort of novel. The book is essentially a list of very wise aphorisms, spoken by a bunch of pricks wanting their ears boxed. Why the three stars? The aphorisms are very wise indeed.
