Outside Reading: Book Review

"Who Occupies This House"
By: Kathleen Hill

In this review "The Ancestral Home" by Tom LeClaire analyses the book "Who Occupies This House" by Kathleen Hill. He takes A harsh stance on the book, giving some very specific examples where he feels that the it loses readers with unanswered questions and an incomplete representation of some of the themes leave the reader confused.  He also names some other books that have used irregular methods of narration effectively, but does not include this book, saying that it simply fell short of effective.
One of the things that LeCLaire did in this review is use long eloquent diction when he is talking about what the author did poorly. This way he is able to be harsh and have a negative stance on parts of the book without sounding cruel, of even at first glance that these are major faults of the writer. He does this be using words like voluptuous, implores, wheedles, scrupulosity. He also uses words that, in conjunction with his eloquent wording add a sense that this review is very "politically" correct. They are not very forceful words, like instead of saying ignores, LeClaire uses evades, which has a more furtive but not entirely gone connotation. He drastically switches from matter-a-fact diction that is simply describing the content of the book to this eloquent politically correct diction when he begins the criticism.
This gives the review a split tone, one that is cold and uninviting in the beginning, to a more sympathetic and evasive tone, as though he is not interested in conflict. There is not a distinct critical approach that LeClaire is partial, he is mostly discusses the aspects of the book that he felt were not effective, with his eloquent language, displaying a hint of new historicism because he uses mostly textual evidence to support his interpretation.