[Grammar] Missing object?

[HBAndersen]

The following sentence confuses me. It is copied from a review in the Financial Times of a memoir by the author David Lodge, and the reviewer writes:

Only in his two volumes of memoirs, however, has that clash been between the illuminating and the almost comically dull.

To me this sounds incomplete. Either we are missing an object (the clash .... has been so striking, for instance); or is the subject of has really the entire clause Only in his two volumes of memoirs? This also sounds wrong.

So, I am curious to know if native speakers find the sentence acceptable and what grammar buffs might tell me about subject, verb and object in this sentence.

Thank you very much for offering this opportunity to ask questions about the English language!

 

[emsr2d2]

There is certainly something missing at the end. I would expect something like "... has that clash between the illuminating and the almost comically dull been so amusingly presented".

 

[PaulMatthews]

Only in his two volumes of memoirs, however, has that clash been between the illuminating and the almost comically dull.

There’s nothing missing – the sentence is fine as written.

The "that" in the phrase "that clash" is anaphoric to something mentioned elsewhere.

The subject is "that clash", and the matrix (main) verb is "has". The preposition phrase "only in his two volumes of memoirs" is an adjunct in which "only" triggers subject-auxiliary inversion, i.e. "that clash has" becomes "has that clash".

There is no object in the sentence.

 

[jutfrank]

It's probably the inversion of the subject (that clash) and verb (has) that's confusing you. Here are a couple more sentences with that kind of structure:

Never have I seen such bravery.
Only then did he realise what he'd done.
Only in Antarctica, however, has the temperature ever been lower.

 

[jutfrank]

There is certainly something missing at the end. I would expect something like "... has that clash between the illuminating and the almost comically dull been so amusingly presented".

You've missed been before between. So there's nothing missing.

 

[Raymott]

"There is always a major clash in the writings of David Lodge.
However, that clash has been between the illuminating and the almost comically dull only in his two volumes of memoirs. His other writing is almost never dull."