Catching the rays of the afternoon sun, each stone sought to outdazzle its next companion.

There haven't been many English debuts more exquisitely executed or scorchingly candid than "The Swimming-Pool Library" (1988), nor follow-ups that could outdazzle it as brilliantly as did "The Folding Star" (1994).

But the splendor of wit cannot outdazzle the calm daylight, which always shows every individual man in balance with his age, and able to work out his own salvation from all the follies of that, and no such glaring contrasts or severalties in that or this.