For it is really about a reversal, this novel, the reversal not so much of the fortune and charm and promise that had belonged to the character of Dick Diver (though that would be there too), but of the illusion that, in the absence of a deeper or more profound goodness, in the person to whom they would pertain, any of these things have a reality or substance beyond that which can exist in a milieu of wealth and privilege. Which even there isn’t much of a reality, for nobody is tried in such a milieu, as there one can withdraw, at any time one would like, if one’s ego or comfort is threatened, into the security of one’s own luxury, which lasts only as long as catastrophe can be averted.