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| | Playland |
 | | Far from suggesting a lack of imaginative store on Dunne's part, these recycled materials reinforce his continuing concern with the interplay of detail and pattern, the relationship between expectation and perception, the necessity and unreliability of both personal and public memory, and the elusive space between what actually happened and what might have happened. |
 | | Characteristically, Playland includes a great number of incidents like those that lead to Jack Broderick's accidental discovery of Melba Mae Toolate--incidents that might be said to move the plot forward but which more precisely move it as much sideways as forward, suggesting that, although time may be linear, it has, like space, three dimensions. |
 | | As in Dunne's previous novels, Playland also includes incidents that turn out to be not causally related to the main storyline, but that cannot be dismissed as wholly unrelated to it. |
| www.wright.edu /~martin.kich/BookBox/Dunne.htm (1130 words) |
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