Sam Leith
Divine Knowledge
Ever since his brilliant debut collection, The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Will Self has occupied a peculiar and somewhat frustrating position. A fantastically inventive writer of short stories, he has never, quite, pulled off a novel. With the exception of My Idea of Fun – strange, twisted, and extraordinarily funny, but not really a novel, though God knows what it was – his full-length outings look more like short stories stretched to breaking point. They might have been entertaining to read, but all were propelled by the same short-haul motive force that distinguished his stories: a good pub conversation; a funny joke; a neat conceit.
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'The authors do not shrink from spelling out the scale of the killings when the Rhodesians made long-distance raids on guerrilla camps in Mozambique and Zambia.'
Xan Smiley on how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-the-secret-agent-saw
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me