The author of 16 previous works of fiction, Penelope Lively almost invariably lives up to her name. She knows, in other words, how to animate a comedy of manners--how to bring its participants to eccentric and intriguing life. Take Stella Brentwood, the 65-year-old anthropologist at the center of Spiderweb. This lifelong student of human behavior is the sort of mouthpiece most authors would die for: who better to record our foibles and self-destructive follies? Yet Stella is also a career outsider who's never stood still long enough to get her bearings: "In her trade, you travelled most fruitfully if you travelled alone. And it helped if you were footloose and singularly unfettered by personal possessions."

Now, however, Stella is ready for retirement. And once she takes the plunge, buying a cottage in rural Somerset, her detachment receives a few superficial dents. For one thing, her friendships--with a neighboring widower and a retired female archaeologist--come to at least a low boil (perhaps a mild simmer would be a better phrase). For another, the English countryside does exercise its intermittent charms: "A small ancient-looking chapel of perfect simplicity perched above a hedgebank that sparkled with flowers. Sometimes it was difficult to take this landscape seriously--to remember that it had evolved from centuries of agricultural endeavour and blithe environmental disregard." But by arresting her habit of perpetual motion, Stella also has time to review her past--both her professional excursions to Egypt and Malta and the Orkney Islands, and her accident-prone personal life.

There isn't, please note, a warm-and-fuzzy denouement, in which the protagonist learns to reach out and touch: she's English, for God's sake. Yet her story has the power to move us. For Stella is not only independent but self-aware, which can be a very mixed blessing. "I am no longer in business," she muses toward the end of Spiderweb. "I am a part of the landscape like everyone else. And some of us are more tenuously placed within that landscape than others." In the end, even this meticulous transient is headed in the same direction as her fellows. --Bob Brandeis

From Publishers Weekly
While Lively's novels always reflect the ironies that life delivers to people looking elsewhere at the time, their insights generally occur in subtle, satisfying observations about society and human nature. Here again she writes of a woman whose interpretation of events is distorted by inbred expectations and the failure to see clearly. Newly retired, unmarried and childless, social anthropologist Stella Brentwood buys a cottage in England's West Country, a region of stolid farmers and bucolic charm. Yet she finds it difficult to settle in: for a professional observer who easily integrated herself into communities in Egypt, Malta and the Orkney Islands, she feels oddly unmoored in her native land. Two people with whom she reestablishes contact?the widowed husband of her best friend at Oxford and a former colleague, a female archeologist?awaken memories of Stella's youth, of her one great love, another man who wanted to marry her and the demands of a peripatetic life that prevented her from establishing bonds or maintaining commitment. As Stella adopts a dog, learns about such local institutions as the general store and ruminates on the passage of time and the long shadow of past decisions, she remains unaware of the whirlwind of verbal abuse and simmering violence in the house just down the lane, where an emotionally deranged woman, her husband and her damaged adolescent sons are time bombs about to impact on Stella's life. Lively wisely avoids melodrama in the denouement, choosing instead to suggest Stella's poignant realization that her detachment, independence and self-sufficiency will determine her future as well as her past. Though the leisurely pace and purposefully digressive narrative are somewhat slow to build suspense, Lively's perceptive vision about the insularity of modern life rings true. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Anthropologist Stella Brentwood, who has lived in tents, mud huts, and tiny studio apartments, is about to retire, so she buys a cottage in Somerset, England, and sets about learning to live the country life. Of course, Stella is still an anthropologist, observing the strange customs of her neighborsAa point Lively (The Five Thousand and One Nights, LJ 1/96) has the grace and good sense to state up front. In the process, Stella gets reacquainted with the husband of her oldest friend, now dead, whose life was decidedly more domestic. (There's some room here for comparing fates, but it's hardly strident or ideological.) Stella also has occasion to encounter her neighbors, a family that seems far more uncivilized and violent than any Stella may have encountered during her work. Stella's new life is, predictably, shattered by a terrible incident involving this family. Lively makes her point, but the pieces of this story don't quite fit. Stella's slow settling into country life is nicely told, but her neighbors never seem quite believable in their ugliness; they're more a device. Buy where Lively is popular.ABarbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

New York Times Book Review
"Penelope Lively is blessed with the gift of being able to render matters of great import with a breath, a barley audible sigh, a touch."

The New Yorker
"The artful Penelope Lively never takes a false step."

Wall Street Journal
"Understated and elegant....Penelope Lively makes a strong case for risk-taking in one's personal life and for allowing oneself to get entwined in spiderwebs of other people's making."

Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
"Her work is invariably intelligent, thoughtful, humane and far deeper than first impressions might suggest....a fine work of fiction."

Boston Globe
"Lively writes with uncommon grace and intelligence."

From AudioFile
In many ways, listening to this book is like encountering a real spider's web. When you come upon it, it's interesting, with little imperfections but ultimately beautiful. When you leave it, however, you have little memory of ever having encountered it. Much of this has to do with narrator Diana Bishop's voice in combination with the text itself. Bishop has a pleasant British accent and creates some interesting characters, but her voice does not grab your attention and keep it. The story doesn't help either. It takes place in the English countryside, where a retired anthropologist turns her talents on observing the locals. There are a few twists and turns, but ultimately it's rather, well, forgettable. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Kirkus Reviews
A strong addition to the already impressive list of Lively's fictional accomplishments (Heat Wave, 1996, etc.), this contemplative tale features a social anthropologist who proves increasingly unable to cope with retirement in her new pastoral home in the west of England, where entanglements good and bad threaten to undo a life of complete self-sufficiency. Unmarried and otherwise unburdened after a career of studying family lineages from the Egyptian Delta to the Orkney Islands, Stella has loved the peripatetic life, but at 65 something appeals to her in the thought of owning a country cottage, not far from where the husband of her dearest and recently deceased friend had also elected to live out his days. Nearby is an archeologist crony, semiretired, and between them Richard and Judith provide all the company that Stella requires, although she also adds a slavishly devoted spaniel to her entourage as a way of convincing herself that she is indeed living the good (rural) life. Old habits die hard, however. Stella can't keep from turning an objective eye on her community, and so begins to feel like as much of an outsider as she had anywhere else. Reflections on the loves of her life, one a globetrotting journalist, the other an Orkney farmerboth of whom retreated before her unassailable independenceonly enhance her alienation, and nothing in the companionable urgings of Richard and Judith can stop the process. When the trouble brewing in a dysfunctional family down the lane spills over into Stella's life, she realizes that she must remain true to who she is and always has been . . . with the inevitable consequences. A quietly compelling drama with many shades of sadness, this is also a scrupulous portrait, both honest and sympathetic, of the proverbial rolling stone. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

At age sixty-five, retired anthropologist Stella Brentwood buys a cottage in Somerset, England, and slowly acquires neighbors, a dog, and a professional curiosity about the country village where she intends to settle and put down roots for the first time. The drama of life in the West Country alternates with Stella's powerfully vivid memories of lovers, friends, and her anthropological sojourns in such exotic places as the Nile Valley in Egypt, the island of Malta, and among farmers in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. She has spent her life studying communities of people - their families, social structures, how they welcomed outsiders into their midst - remaining an observer, privileged to share in their intimate life but not obliged, and finally unwilling, to tie herself closely to any lover, friend, or social group. In Somerset, Stella once again finds an opportunity to become part of the web of relationships that make for human society. Her oldest friend's husband, now widowed, is interested in something more than friendship with her. Her neighbors turn out to be a dangerously violent and unstable family, a threat to the entire community as well as to Stella herself. An old friend, an archaeologist, poignantly seeks her out for companionship. How will independent-minded Stella, always reluctant to make an emotional commitment, respond?

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

While Lively's novels always reflect the ironies that life delivers to people looking elsewhere at the time, their insights generally occur in subtle, satisfying observations about society and human nature. Here again she writes of a woman whose interpretation of events is distorted by inbred expectations and the failure to see clearly. Newly retired, unmarried and childless, social anthropologist Stella Brentwood buys a cottage in England's West Country, a region of stolid farmers and bucolic charm. Yet she finds it difficult to settle in: for a professional observer who easily integrated herself into communities in Egypt, Malta and the Orkney Islands, she feels oddly unmoored in her native land. Two people with whom she reestablishes contact--the widowed husband of her best friend at Oxford and a former colleague, a female archeologist--awaken memories of Stella's youth, of her one great love, another man who wanted to marry her and the demands of a peripatetic life that prevented her from establishing bonds or maintaining commitment. As Stella adopts a dog, learns about such local institutions as the general store and ruminates on the passage of time and the long shadow of past decisions, she remains unaware of the whirlwind of verbal abuse and simmering violence in the house just down the lane, where an emotionally deranged woman, her husband and her damaged adolescent sons are time bombs about to impact on Stella's life. Lively wisely avoids melodrama in the denouement, choosing instead to suggest Stella's poignant realization that her detachment, independence and self-sufficiency will determine her future as well as her past. Though the leisurely pace and purposefully digressive narrative are somewhat slow to build suspense, Lively's perceptive vision about the insularity of modern life rings true. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Anthropologist Stella Brentwood, who has lived in tents, mud huts, and tiny studio apartments, is about to retire, so she buys a cottage in Somerset, England, and sets about learning to live the country life. Of course, Stella is still an anthropologist, observing the strange customs of her neighbors--a point Lively (The Five Thousand and One Nights, LJ 1/96) has the grace and good sense to state up front. In the process, Stella gets reacquainted with the husband of her oldest friend, now dead, whose life was decidedly more domestic. (There's some room here for comparing fates, but it's hardly strident or ideological.) Stella also has occasion to encounter her neighbors, a family that seems far more uncivilized and violent than any Stella may have encountered during her work. Stella's new life is, predictably, shattered by a terrible incident involving this family. Lively makes her point, but the pieces of this story don't quite fit. Stella's slow settling into country life is nicely told, but her neighbors never seem quite believable in their ugliness; they're more a device. Buy where Lively is popular.--Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"

AudioFile

In many ways, listening to this book is like encountering a real spider's web. When you come upon it, it's interesting, with little imperfections but ultimately beautiful. When you leave it, however, you have little memory of ever having encountered it. Much of this has to do with narrator Diana Bishop's voice in combination with the text itself. Bishop has a pleasant British accent and creates some interesting characters, but her voice does not grab your attention and keep it. The story doesn't help either. It takes place in the English countryside, where a retired anthropologist turns her talents on observing the locals. There are a few twists and turns, but ultimately it's rather, well, forgettable. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine

Margot Livesay - The New York Times Book Review

Although Stella studies lineage and connections, she herself is an anomaly, a self-sufficient woman with no desire for normal domestic bonds....Lively's careful focusing on Stella's romantic history, coupled with her depiction of Stella's present situation, suggests a keen desire to create a portrait of a woman who...genuinely yearns...not to be tied down.

Kirkus Reviews

A strong addition to the already impressive list of Lively's fictional accomplishments (Heat Wave, 1996, etc.), this contemplative tale features a social anthropologist who proves increasingly unable to cope with retirement in her new pastoral home in the west of England, where entanglements good and bad threaten to undo a life of complete self-sufficiency. Unmarried and otherwise unburdened after a career of studying family lineages from the Egyptian Delta to the Orkney Islands, Stella has loved the peripatetic life, but at 65 something appeals to her in the thought of owning a country cottage, not far from where the husband of her dearest and recently deceased friend had also elected to live out his days. Nearby is an archeologist crony, semiretired, and between them Richard and Judith provide all the company that Stella requires, although she also adds a slavishly devoted spaniel to her entourage as a way of convincing herself that she is indeed living the good (rural) life. Old habits die hard, however. Stella can't keep from turning an objective eye on her community, and so begins to feel like as much of an outsider as she had anywhere else. Reflections on the loves of her life, one a globetrotting journalist, the other an Orkney farmer-both of whom retreated before her unassailable independence-only enhance her alienation, and nothing in the companionable urgings of Richard and Judith can stop the process. When the trouble brewing in a dysfunctional family down the lane spills over into Stella's life, she realizes that she must remain true to who she is and always has been with the inevitable consequences. A quietly compelling drama with many shades of sadness, this is also ascrupulous portrait, both honest and sympathetic, of the proverbial rolling stone. .