Self-Hugging 
Andrew O’Hagan
- Boswell's Presumptuous Task by Adam Sisman
- James Boswell’s ‘Life of Johnson’: Research Edition: Vol. II edited by Bruce Redford and Elizabeth Goldring
- Samuel Johnson: The Life of an Author by Lawrence Lipking
- Dr Johnson's London by Liza Picard
One of the general effects of hero-worship is its tendency to marshal resentment in those who claim themselves no party to the admiration. A good example of this offers itself at the opening of Vanity Fair – ‘A Novel without a Hero’ – when the single-minded Becky Sharp, high in a coach bound for Russell Square, flings a copy of Johnson’s Dictionary out of the window to land on the grass at the feet of her former teacher, a sworn disciple of the Great Lexicographer. ‘So much for the Dictionary,’ says Becky Sharp as the carriage pulls away, ‘and, thank God, I’m out of Chiswick.’
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Andrew O’Hagan’s The Atlantic Ocean, a collection of essays on Britain and America, many of which were first published in the London Review, will be published in June. Be Near Me, his last novel, won the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize award for fiction.
Other articles by this contributor:
Blame it on the boogie · In Pursuit of Michael Jackson
At the Design Museum · Peter Saville
Iraq, 2 May 2005 · Two Soldiers
The God Squad · Andrew O’Hagan in Bushland
In His Hot Head · Robert Louis Stevenson
Cartwheels over Broken Glass · worshipping Morrissey
How to Survive Your Own Stupidity · Homage to Laurel and Hardy
The Things We Throw Away · The Garbage of England
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