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This is an odd one. I enjoyed it and it is really well written, but when I had finished it I found myself wondering what Sybille Bedford had been trying to achieve in 1963 with her tale of 3 generations of women in early-to-mid 20th Century Europe. The introduction by the author goes someway to explaining it, but again I was left a bit baffled. I think that comparing it to what else was going on in the literary world at that time made it seem from another time. It's not as though some of the themes of the book wouldn't be brought up many times afterwards, but this book simply felt very tame to me. There is a progression of attitudes through the generations, and it is understandable how they wouldn't necessarily agree with each other, but it didn't give me much hope for where the author saw us going. Style and language earned it a generous four stars, lack of oomph lost it one.