Books

Time Will Darken It

  • Jan 26, 2021
  • William Maxwell
  • 703 responses.

Time Will Darken It Pregnant with her second child Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King and frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin Nora and in the process unwittingly jeopardi

  • Title: Time Will Darken It
  • Author: William Maxwell
  • ISBN: 9780679772583
  • Page: 383
  • Format: Paperback

    • Pregnant with her second child, Martha King finds her marriage to lawyer Austin King and frustrating when her husband befriends his young foster cousin, Nora, and, in the process, unwittingly jeopardizes his marriage, career, and place in the community.

    • ↠ Time Will Darken It || ☆ PDF Read by ☆ William Maxwell
      383 William Maxwell
    • thumbnail Title: ↠ Time Will Darken It || ☆ PDF Read by ☆ William Maxwell
      Posted by:William Maxwell
      Published :2020-02-25T00:21:24+00:00

    About "William Maxwell"

    1. William Maxwell

      William Keepers Maxwell Jr was an American novelist, and fiction editor at the New Yorker He studied at the University of Illinois and Harvard University Maxwell wrote six highly acclaimed novels, a number of short stories and essays, children s stories, and a memoir, Ancestors 1972 His award winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has recurring themes of childhood, family, loss and lives changed quietly and irreparably Much of his work is autobiographical, particularly concerning the loss of his mother when he was 10 years old growing up in the rural Midwest of America and the house where he lived at the time, which he referred to as the Wunderkammer or Chamber of Wonders He wrote of his loss It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away Since his death in 2000 several works of biography have appeared, including A William Maxwell Portrait Memories and Appreciations W W Norton Co 2004 , My Mentor A Young Man s Friendship with William Maxwell by Alec Wilkinson Houghton Mifflin, 2002 , and William Maxwell A Literary Life by Barbara Burkhardt University of Illinois Press, 2005 In 2008 the Library of America published the first of two collections of William Maxwell, Early Novels and Stories, Christopher Carduff editor His collected edition of William Maxwell s fiction, published to mark the writer s centenary, was completed by a second volume, Later Novels and Stories in the fall of 2008.

    703 Comments

    1. 4 and 1/2 starsWilliam Maxwell's works contain the elements in fiction that I love: interiority; lovely, empathetic prose; and quotable passages that illuminate the universal. He understands human nature, from 4-year-old Abbey to the elderly, forgetful Mr. Ellis; from the quietly ambitious spinster sisters to the people-pleasing, slightly insecure, main character. Maxwell seems to understand us all, from the petty resentments we feel when our good deeds are misunderstood to those tenuous, fleeti [...]

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    2. I love "Time Will Darken It." I am, to borrow a word from the book's back cover, besotted with it. It likes me; it is not entirely sure that love exists, but it is warm toward me, from a distance — the world is a harsh place but it projects more indifference than malice.William Maxwell was one of America's clearest, sparest, most graceful writers, and "Time Will Darken It" is his masterpiece. Reading Maxwell is like sitting on a porch with a cold glass of water in your hand and all day to drin [...]

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    3. I have this in a volume with two other of Maxwell's works, The Chateau and So Long, See You Tomorrow. I fish it out of its hiding place tonight, and find a bookmark at the start of the former of those, that is, after Time Will Darken It. So that says I've read it, and I vaguely remember doing so, but can't remember when, probably sometime in the late '90s of the last millennium.So many unread books I have - and it seems that some I have read are masquerading as unread in the corners of my mind . [...]

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    4. Maxwell is the gentlest of writers. No filler here--spare but yet so descriptive. Each sentence being so precise and controlled that you don't even realize where he's quietly taking you until you've suddenly arrived.

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    5. I come away from every William Maxwell book more stunned that hasn't become part of the American cannon. His writing is flawless. This is a book all about unrequited love, and, as is always the case, he deals with the subject honestly and sensitively. I can't say a single bad thing about this book it's wonderful. I'll never stopped being amazed by his ability to define and contextualize life's experiences and the people we share them with.

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    6. Amazing writing. Compassion. Heart. We need more of this in contemporary fiction. More compassion. What an amazing writer. His insight, detail and careful prose grabbed me. His empathy and grace would not let me go.I could not put this down.

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    7. Maxwell can do no wrong in my eyes. I was absolutely swept away by this gorgeously written novel, and found it incredibly rich, both psychologically and emotionally. Remarkably taut and unexpected.

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    8. Maxwell's ability to limn incisive character portraits may be second to none. I felt I got to know these 1912 characters and their small town very well, and they often felt quite contemporary despite having been created in 1948. In the end, I guess I was expecting more of a payoff story-wise. Maxwell may be a little too subtle for me, but he's a pleasure to read nonetheless.

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    9. Imagine, if you will, a narrative centered on Michael Bluth, only plunged backwards a century and with all wit and comedy replaced with tragedy and tragedy. What remains is the story of a bourgeois pillar of the community whose total inability to disappoint anyone or to shrug off expectations leads to disaster after disaster. This is a very slow-moving slow burner of a slow character study that slowly grinds toward its depressingly understated climax, but what a tragic climax it is. Ooof.Also, s [...]

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    10. This is a wonderful book by a great author who has not received the recognition he deserves. Although perhaps best known for the award winning So Long, See You Tomorrow, Maxwell's masterpiece may be this novel about the effect a visiting set of relatives has on a family, their friends and neighbors. Maxwell is a master at creating characters, both male and female. He also has a deft hand in placing these characters in a certain time and place. I felt I could walk through the door of the King hou [...]

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    11. Such a sensitively written book! Why have I never discovered Maxwell before?! Some readers may be annoyed that most of the action of the novel happens "offstage" and that Maxwell is more concerned with exploring the inner lives of his characters than writing a plot that flows A to B to C, but if you can get over the fact that this is not a novel as you expect it to be, you can relax and let yourself glide along in the hands of a master. My entire book is underlined with quotes I loved. What the [...]

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    12. Maxwell's Time Will Darken It is among the most rewarding and satisfying reading experiences I have ever had. His characters are wonderfully made. With sparse style and grace he captures the quiet spaces of day-to-day living, the in-between areas in which lives unfold. The novel is also among the best depictions of the interiors of marriage I have encountered, with the intricacies of the interatctions between Nora and Austin, awaiting their second child and besieged by the visitation of distant [...]

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    13. A fantastic book! Maxwell's power lies in his ability to transition between the specific and the general, moving from the domestic minutia of a family in early 20th century Draperville, Illinois to thrilling abstractions that link these intimacies to general truths on a much larger scale. Totally impressed by this book and excited to read more of what Maxwell has to offer.

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    14. I just had one of those moments when you pick up a book by chance, written by an author you've never heard of, and the results are quietly astonishing. Maxwell's powers of description are transporting, and the characters he creates indelible. This is a quiet book, set in turn-of-the-last century Illinois, about a small-town lawyer living in his father's shadow, who invites his shirt-tail southern relatives to stay with him and his newly-pregnant wife, one summer before the war to end all wars. C [...]

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    15. There's something about this author - he just sets a mood, time, and place that I am immediately drawn into. My quibble with this book was there just were too many major scenes that took place "offstage". The author would set up a scene and then leave it to the reader's imagination, or he would commence a new scene and refer to something that happened, but which he doesn't fully explain. I can go along with a certain amount of that, but there were one or two times I really wanted to be there whe [...]

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    16. A wonderful read that I could not put down. His characters are never truly one thing or another. Like many of us in the world they have shades of good, bad, petulance, tolerance, and pasts that shape them. And like real life, we never truly know where it is going. Why did it take a bookseller to tell me about this novel? Why isn't Maxwell ranked up there with other great American writers of the 20th century?

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    17. I think the only people who will appreciate this book are writers, or character study enthusiasts. I am neither and was completely bored the entire book. Maybe this is a representation of the inner workings of traditional family life? Who knowsl I know is that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone I know. Not to say the author isn't talentedmply I don't appreciate this kind of story telling.

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    18. William Maxwell needs a better publicist. He can really paint a place and its people with words. Movingly to boot.

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    19. William Maxwell. Time Will Darken It. New York: Vintage Books, 1948.Maxwell must have understood people well. His characters’ thoughts and reactions are believable. I expect it with the male characters, but his women and female children are also convincing. That type of understanding and respect reminds me of Andre Dubus. For both of these authors, I would sometimes forget that the characters were created by a male author. There is a dark side of people that Maxwell handles subtlely. He did it [...]

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    20. This is a beautifully (and masterfully) rendered tale of a year or so in the life of a married couple, Austin and Martha King, who live in a mid-sized north midwest town in the early part of the twentieth century. On the surface their life seems to be ordinary and happy. They have a small daughter, and Austin makes a good living as junior partner in a law firm. They serve as hosts to relations from the south who stay for a few weeks. But there's a lot going on beneath these calm waters. Austin f [...]

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    21. I agree with other reviews that Maxwell's power of description and observation is something to behold. I also very much enjoyed reading a story set in Illinois in 1912 and felt transported to another time. However, my main grumble personally is that nothing very major happened throughout (with the exception of the end, but even this was unsatisfactory personally). Minor characters (like Rachel) were introduced but never fully explored and this left left me wondering why they had been given the s [...]

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    22. We have here a lovely portrait of a youngish middle class couple in a small town in Illinois in 1912. Social customs are observed, racial lines are respected, and the differences between men and women are poignant and quietly, patiently tragic. Remember: Your great-grandparents, and their parents, too, were once young and full of ideals and energy. They didn't always fall in love with the right people. They didn't always love the people they married. Sometimes, they wished they'd made other choi [...]

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    23. Set in the early part of the twentieth century, this is the story of a man who unwittingly unleashes devastating results on his personal and professional life. When the Potters, who are very, very distantly related to Austin King, invite themselves to travel from Mississippi to Illinois to visit the King family for an extended stay, he reluctantly agrees. William Maxwell is able to portray the characters and the subtle plot development with the clarity that defines his skill as a writer. The end [...]

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    24. An overlooked classic, period. To borrow from Eudora Welty's review of the book: "Maxwell's sensitive prose is the good and careful tool of an artist who is always doing exactly what he means to do. The careful, meditative examination of unfolding relationships among people of several sorts and ages - all interesting - has Mr. Maxwell's expected integrity, and the story's quiet and accumulating power a dark and disturbing beauty that has some of its roots, at least, in fine restraint."If you enj [...]

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    25. Story about a man and his little family in the early 1900's - relatives from the South come to pay a visit and everything changes. I had ambivalent feelings towards this book. It was a well-written case study of human flaws. Kind of a cross between Tennessee Williams and Jane Austen. A bit slow-moving at times. Just so many parts made me squirm with impatience and a restlessness born of stress. I don't know - probably just me.

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    26. A very moving book that will stay with me for a long time.Set in a time when Women and Men had their own roles and knew how to behave.Class and cultural divide.How a marriage suffered by the Southern relatives who stay one summer never to be the same again.''Women are never ready to let go of love at the point where men are satisfied and able to turn to something else.It is the fault of timing.''A new author to me and I'll certainly be reading more.

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    28. i discovered William Maxwell in the epigraph of a John Irving novel (that i never ended up reading). the quote resonated so much that i dropped the Irving novel and immediately found the Maxwell novel which bore the quote ( So Long, See You Tomorrow). Time Will Darken It is the second Maxwell novel i have read and i can already detect a theme. this one, written in 1948, pre-dates So Long by about 30 years. in some ways So Long represents a crystallization of the themes explored in Time Will Dark [...]

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    29. Yet another outstanding novel by Maxwell. I would say that the main strengths of this novel are two: first, the characters are (mostly) completely three-dimensional, as a reader you really care for each one of them; second, the novel deals with a very real set of existential issues in a deep and honest way. I think this is perhaps my favorite novel of his so far.

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