I've read " Portrait of a Lady " and this book doesn't even begin to reach the heights of literary genius as some people have described.I grew up in the 70's. Graduated high school in 1975, college in 1979, so I'm familiar with the times, but this novel is so arduous to readthat honestly, I couldn't even finish it and quite frankly, I didn't care to. This book is going in the trash, not even the recycling bin, it was so bad.