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“... the semiotic anarchies of James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Think of Ulrich, the hero of The Man without Qualities, and his ‘dreadful feeling of blind space’, of nothingness at the heart of everything. What the interpretation of High Modernism as a terrain of non-belief can’t account for is the wild popularity of spiritualism which was such a ...”

“... tough kid from a miserable background turns into a brooding, diffident, egotistical, elusive young man with a good profile, a honking adolescent’s voice not unlike Truffaut’s, and a succession of delicious girls. So, for some of us at least, the charm wears thin – or rather, it changes its nature. ‘Scapegrace’ may still be the word: as a young ...”

“... were promulgated in 1928, largely on the initiative of radiologists and manufacturers of x-ray equipment. They derived from the concept of the ‘erythema dose’, or e.r., the quantity of x-rays that just redden the skin. Radiologists estimated from personal experience that they suffered no ill-effects if they received a hundredth of an e.r. per ...”

“... out Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion for praise, but he would have done well to explain why it is Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow who provides the emotional anchor. ‘That “Over the Rainbow”,’ Rushdie writes, ‘came close to being cut out of the movie is well known, and proof positive that Hollywood makes its masterpieces by accident, because it simply does ...”

“... Henry James acknowledged that her novels were ‘brilliant, lively, ingenious and destitute of a ray of sentiment’. In a letter of 1911 he told her that ‘I used to follow you ardently.’ But after her death Braddon’s reputation declined, along with the reputations of many other innovative Victorian women writers. When I was researching her work in the ...”

“... Gate contemporary (Lynn Ripley, who went on to become a pop singer called Twinkle and to marry the man from the Milk Tray adverts) as ‘the coolest girl in school’, despite never ditching her ‘twinsets and tweeds’. An aspect of the 1960s that didn’t pass Camilla by was sex. She was known, according to Tyrrel, for being ‘raunchy and randy’. A ...”

“... an acquaintance who told them he had a ‘death wish’; noted that his appearance – an unshaven man wearing sunglasses and a hood – fitted the composite sketches of the suspect; reported that he owned firearms and, erroneously, a flamethrower; commented on the violence and torture depicted in his novels (which they didn’t seem to finish); suspected that ...”

“... now extremely desirable for young professional people. In came a bright young professional man as candidate for the Social Democratic Party, cutting between the quarrelling ‘socialist’ factions, and boosted by the London media-men (conveniently near at hand and poised to foment and exploit the Labour quarrel). This candidate scooped the ...”

“... of the real world. In a letter to Max Born he declared: ‘The idea that an electron exposed to a ray by its own free decision chooses the moment and the direction in which it wants to eject is intolerable to me.’ If that were so, he concluded, he would rather be a cobbler or a croupier in a casino than a physicist. Horgan’s judgment on superstring theory ...”

“... a woman who owned a disco and was called Fontaine, has sex in a hot tub with a very unsuitable man who might or might not have been in the Mafia. I also read Jaws but scarcely got beyond the sex scene on the beach before I came across the gouging Great White and the word ‘sinew’, which I’d never encountered before. I had more trouble with The ...”

“... weeks (11 March) my appointment came through. I was examined, and referred for a barium meal and X-ray as well as more tests. A further nine days for that, and on 20 March I presented myself for the results. The consultant told me, kindly, that I had acute ulcerating colitis and should come into hospital at once. It seems that I was quite ill (a ‘very ...”

“... nuclear energy or Mr Scargill’s dirty, polluting, nasty piece of coal?’ ‘When I was a young man working down the pit,’ Scargill replied, ‘I occasionally suffered from dyspepsia and heartburn. I relieved the symptoms by sucking on a piece of coal, as it is a good antacid. I will eat this dirty lump of coal if this gentleman will eat his uranium ...”

“... his status as a counter-cultural hero. Pynchon’s Tesla is a fleeting and mysterious presence, a man around whom other characters weave tall tales. Towards the end of the novel, in a sly nod to a constant on conspiracy websites, one of them wonders whether Tesla was behind the Tunguska Event, a ten-megaton blast that destroyed 830 square miles of Siberian ...”

“... the gym, under the avid gaze of their trainers, including Carmen Graziano, a portly, voluble white man in his late fifties who hangs over the ropes shouting instructions at the sparring fighters. Graziano could be seen in July in The Truth’s corner for the fight against Tyson in the Atlantic City Convention Centre. For Graziano, the event was a ...”

“... suggested to Altman that he restrain his irony, but he may have taken the hint a bit too far. ‘Ray never raised himself above the plights of his characters,’ Gallagher tells us she told Altman. Well, no, but he never treated the plights of his characters as just one of those things either, and still less as just one of those expected things, the ...”