Concluding

Duly completed The Go-Between this morning. A strong ending with the now aged narrator going back to Brandham Hall to find out what happened to the protagonists and getting, for the first time, Marian's view of events. I didn't entirely buy the idea of Leo's life being blighted by his career as go-between though. It supposes a kind of heightened sensitivity that might apply to Proust's Marcel but just doesn't work here. In fact the whole novel seems sort of sub-Proustian somehow, I suppose obviously so in its themes of reminiscence, obsessive love and class-consciousness. I can see why it was thought of as a good basis for a movie and was not entirely surprised that Pinter did the screenplay. His screenplay for In Search of Lost Time never made it to the screen sadly.

Of its type, a consciously literary novel, The Go-Between is solid enough material, but it hardly sets the world on fire.