A Winnowing
Mixing such seemingly incongruous elements as social satire, near-slapstick, and obsession with death, A Winnowing,
first published in 1910, is the first of Robert Hugh Benson's
"mainstream" novels. An undeservedly overlooked work today, the novel
flays Edwardian society in terms that bring to mind the comedy of P. G.
Wodehouse and the black humor of Evelyn Waugh. Benson's novel contrasts
the secular dogma that only the material world is of value with the
belief that death has meaning. (ISBN 978-1-60210-005-3, 224 pp.,
$20.00.)
