David Sexton
Not a Book but a Commodity
This is a book so much not there that, like the dog that didn’t bark in the night, it’s remarkable. It is hard to imagine how human hand could have produced it.
I have always believed, as a reviewer, that absolutely every book must hold some sort of interest for the truly attentive reader. After all, books are by people, every human soul is unique, and however awful or slight the work, it must have something of its author breathed into it. Psychiatrists read character from ramblings about Rorschach blots, don’t they, and even a Frederic Raphael story might reward the sufficiently skilled and patient investigator.
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'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire