The occasion of David and Alison's engagement and marriage is Middleton's opportunity to expand on views about age and married life among the professional couples it brings together. The style is stock Middleton, plenty of intellectual chatting about literature among the academics and middle class values dominate. None of the main characters has had a marriage that lasts the distance. The writer lets his characters muse on why things didn't turn out the way they imagined they would for both themselves and their other. Making the best of what you've got, decency in one's dealings with others and with old age and death ever in the background, is about as deep as Middleton manages here.

It isn't Middleton's best. I admire him though for his dogged reputation for turning out novels that look deeper into the mentality and spirit behind provincial, comfortable English lives.

There was certainly some interest in this book for me - an exploration of elements of the English academic & professional middle classes - due to my daughter's current place of abode being Cambridge, England. However there's something about Middleton's style of story telling that isn't quite right - this reader doesn't feel engaged enough by the story or the characters. I think the problem is that there's not quite enough depth in either. There is a plot and we move along at reasonable speed, but at the end the "so what?" question isn't able to be answered with enough of a positive shout. ( )