Superb. Anybody who drank the kool-aid that opening the Western canon to works of proletarian, feminist, and/or "colonial" fiction was just an excuse to lower quality standards (looking at you, Harold Bloom...) needs to read this astounding novel. It could hold its own with the best of 20th century realism in English - but even a library copy wasn't easy to come by. I hope it gets another look. It's a great work. ( )