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“... on the manuscript that would become In Patagonia: ‘pages of outstanding prose’; ‘very much a page-by-page read’; ‘I don’t feel able to dismiss it’ but ‘I don’t think it’s on as it stands.’ She ends by recommending an ‘investigation of the author’s position’ – which is pretty much what she ...”

“... in which you are allowed with impunity to give away the endings of whodunnits. We are told on page 248 who strangled Sally in James’s Cover Her Face (it wasn’t, of course, the loyal housekeeper), and a page later Priestman coolly lets the murderer of A Certain Justice out of the bag. If this kind of thing catches ...”

“... the book in ‘English’, what sort of English do you choose? Put simply, on the novel’s first page, do you want the schoolboy Charles Bovary’s trousers to be held up by braces, or do you want his pants to be held up by suspenders? The decisions, and the colouration, are irrevocable. So we might fantasise the translator of our ...”

“... two views are simply elided. A good example of his approach is provided by his remark on the first page of Chapter One that ‘in Western Europe the economics profession eulogised the Exchange Rate Mechanism and monetary union.’ This is breathtakingly false. Some UK economists saw value in ERM membership for the UK – though most of them would have ...”

“... Empire is either to leave it strictly alone, or turn it upside down. Thus Louis Bergeron and Alan Forrest look at the Grande Armée only incidentally, and only to point out the injustices of conscription and the high rates of desertion. Jean Tulard is less alienated – predictably so, since his appeal spans the Sorbonne where he teaches, the French ...”

“... selection to its distinct disadvantage. Henryson, Dunbar, Lyndsay and Montgomerie blaze off the page. Drummond’s ironic ‘A Character of the Anti-Covenanter, or Malignant’ is a splendid retrieval on Morgan’s part. Fergusson’s ‘Braid Claith’ and Burns’s ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ continue the technical virtuosity which is obligatory in ...”

“... Sir William Robertson, is missing. Billy Smart, the circus proprietor, is in, though not Sir Alan Cobham, whose private air force introduced millions to flying, or Sir Donald Wolfit. Tom Webster, the sports cartoonist, gains his niche, but not ‘Beachcomber’. Enough of that; the game is too easy to play. The entries are skilfully ...”

“... and if she can’t make it, there seems little hope for such as Christine Brooke-Rose or Alan Burns. There are at least two reasons why adventure is not to be expected. The first is the lack of books to be adventurous about. The big mind-stretching, patience-trying, world-beating novels are now written in America, North and South, or perhaps in ...”

“... is that, too. At one point Kim Basinger looking like Veronica Lake watches This Gun for Hire, with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. When another cop hustles an imitation Lana Turner he is dismayed to discover that she is Lana Turner; or to be precise about our illusions, the actor playing a cop encounters an actress who is supposed to be Lana Turner, as distinct ...”

“... for continued occupation. In February 2004, US officials announced that they had discovered a 17-page letter supposedly written by the almost illiterate Zarqawi to al-Qaida’s leadership, stressing the need to provoke a sectarian civil war in Iraq. Thomas Ricks later reported in the Washington Post that this was part of an American psychological operation ...”

“... Two days after May Day, the festival of labour, a story appeared on the front page of the Financial Times under the typically downbeat headline: ‘Work permit shake-up targets skill gap.’ It told of the Government’s introduction of a permit system which would allow rapid entry into the UK for foreign professionals and highly skilled technicians – doctors, nurses, software engineers, information technologists and others ...”

“... rare. It is all over Utah. When Norman Mailer was writing the Gilmore book, compiling his 15,000-page transcript of interview material, he received a letter from a man named Jack Abbott. The man had a lot in common with Gilmore. Both had spent a huge proportion of their lives in detention. Still in jail, Abbott went on to dispatch a series of letters which ...”

“... 1798, when it may actually have disappointed radical expectations. The first name on the title page was that of the out-of-town publisher Joseph Cottle of Bristol. It’s an odd fact that Cottle authors – the youthful Southey and Coleridge alone, together, or in conjunction with friends such as Lamb – account for most of the modern English poets ...”

“... a belching roar over a middle-aged man sitting with a woman on one of the green leather seats. Alan Sillitoe. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ‘Belching roar’ is, I think, bloody good (you notice that Sillitoe is writing so plastered that it reads as if it’s the poor old temptation that fell down the stairs), and I like the symbiosis of booze and ...”

“... world that surrounded her. Now, in December 1991, the woman, Hilda Kietel, made her second front-page appearance in the neighbourhood fright-sheet. She was found lying naked, except for a shawl tugged about her shoulders, under a kitchen table. She had been there for about a month. An inspection of the premises revealed no carpet, no linoleum, no cooker, no ...”