It says, '[Broster] belongs to the school of Neil Munro in sympathetic interpretation of the Highland character and in a distinction of writing that is far above the average.'

Thank you for the titles! They'll all go on my to-read list :D

I think Clive is deeply, deeply repressed and self-deceiving, so much so that it does come across as weird and confusing. (The film makes it much more legible, having another gay character go to prison and showing Clive's conversion as a reaction to that). Have you read phantomtomato's recent review?—there are a lot of insightful thoughts on Clive in there.