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The second entry in 'The Frederica Quartet' seems somehow more relevantly narrated under that name; in other words, Frederica becomes, if not the central figure of the novel, at least the most fleshed out and compelling, to my mind. The other Potters-Stephanie and Marcus-as well as Daniel and Alexander remain integral to the familial drama that began in The Virgin in the Garden, though I felt these characters seemed to expand outward rather than develop in particularly new directions.

Stephanie and Frederica in this novel illustrate the two possible roles a woman might occupy at this historical moment, and the limitations that each of these roles present. Stephanie, as she muses, is "sunk in biology" - her brilliant mind, her affinity for words (Wordsworth aptly is the volume no one can find while Stephanie is in labor), become sunk beneath the weight of domesticity, the milky baby smell that comes to consumer Stephanie's life. Though I say Stephanie didn't seem as fresh a character in Still Life as Frederica does, I nevertheless found her position as mother far more intriguing (and relatable) than that of the romance-smitten girl in Virgin. If her relationship with Daniel in the earlier novel felt, not forced, but at times somewhat repugnant, when this dynamic becomes weighed down with the mundanities of childrearing, one seems to see how a woman as brilliant as Stephanie might have found herself, to use that phrase again, "sunk."

Frederica, on the other hand, is now a university girl, exploring the life of the mind as she experiences her sexual awakening. Admittedly, the stirrings of this shift began in Virgin, but felt somewhat circumscribed by an infantile idea of what eroticism or romance might be. Here Frederica comes into her own, even if it means a great deal of tedious sex (and who hasn't had to whistle while they worked that one?). Her idolatry in the first novel, re: Alexander, finds its replacement here, but Frederica begins to see the pitfalls of placing one's idealisms in fallible father figures - indeed, this is what marks the developmental fracture in her character and (I think) sets her up for even more fascinating developments in the novels that will follow.

If I think Virgin was a more profound novel - more locked into and allusive towards a literary tradition - Still Life considers the failures of words, the power of the visual, an apprehension of the world in a color, rather than a verbal, palette. And if the earlier novel seemed more powerful, more erudite, the real benefit to this one is that it's far more readable, engaging. Almost a page-turner at times. I'd been planning on spacing my reading of the Quartet out over a couple of years, but now I can't promise that I won't be picking up Babel Tower in a couple of weeks.