“... to varieties of literary practice and authorial intention. Those tedious old rows of cabbages may, after all, represent a sovereign design: cabbages are kings, OK? This is a very interesting argument, presented with an energy and volubility powerful enough to command assent. I balk pleasurably at a few marginal things, but find only one matter that might ...”

“... to this day in many parts of the world. With the coming of agriculture, even the food problem may have worsened. How do we unravel this paradox? It can be argued that sedentism increases the vulnerability to climatic disasters – nomads just move on. In the long run, tilling the soil, accompanied as it usually is by the intrusions of ...”

“... times before but is none the worse for that. It is still an enjoyable read, whatever else it may be, and every bit as much of an atmospheric period piece as Gwen Raverat’s famous reminiscences of more or less the same time – even if no two atmospheres could be more different than draughty Cambridge and richly-upholstered Vienna on either side of the ...”

“... is one of those who is always insisting on his weight, as James inveterately insists on his wit. May Week was in June, the third of James’s ‘Unreliable Memoirs’, has on its front cover a photograph in which the author, a somewhat weathered undergraduate, has the look of a confident college footballer, and on the back a more recent portrait in which he ...”

“... In the 18th century, as the profession emerged from its gentlemen-and-surveyors phase, it may have seemed that art had rules – that aesthetic and practical decisions were of the same kind. This consensus on taste, if it ever existed, was brief. Intuition, often dressed as a moral imperative – Gothic is true, ornament is crime, displayed ...”

“... and exponentially expanding one. If one stuffed parrot can tell you something about Flaubert, what may not fifty stuffed parrots do for you? Interpretations can themselves be interpreted; there is always a motive for an interpretation if you know where to look for it. A History of the World in 10½ Chapters is, likewise, inspired not so much by hermeneutic ...”

“... is right, that it does all hang together, and that if we shake it around for long enough, we may discover the secret of the column. Classical and Renaissance thinkers endorsed the metaphysical theory of the microcosm, as the true principle of order. According to this, the human body and the ideal building both reflect the order of the universe. The body ...”

“... becoming politicised. Of the five thousand clubbers who go through these doors in a weekend, many may dimly remember that it was the owner of this club, James Palumbo, who gave a car, a Rover, to Peter Mandelson MP, to help the cause. It is here, at the suitably messianic Ministry of Sound, that the Use Your Vote campaign is organised. Much of the music ...”

“... the dinosaurs had to make way for the superior evolutionary accomplishments of mammals. This may explain why even professionals approached their extinction as dilettantes, advancing ideas that had no scientific rigour. Dinosaurs were wiped out by epidemics of slipped discs, cataracts, toothache or parasites; they were felled by hormonal over-activity ...”

“... ever done by mistake. The period we are now embarked on is quite possibly terminal. After it, we may expect a deluge – a deluge of nothing. Houses with venerable names and cosmopolitan traditions seem quite unembarrassed about putting out catalogues that are wall-to-wall English-language originals. Chatto – home of Chekhov, Proust and Joseph Roth ...”

“... to die young, preferably of consumption. Their women, if their tastes lie in this direction, may be called to matrimony and motherhood: but they are seldom given to authorship, and they are not encouraged to own independent musical personalities. These preconditions leave a clear field for the imagination of Hollywood scriptwriters or the industry of ...”

“... as unchanging as James hoped Venice would be. The Naples of Così Fan Tutti, Dibdin’s best book, may have been scrubbed up for the G7 conference and made safe again for tourism. Yet cleaning the streets can be a way of doing business as usual. Nothing basic has changed and nobody – the police, the criminals, the prostitutes – is exactly what he ...”

“... the narrator’s best friend) and the strong consciousness of the narrative person. These ideas may come from her discussions with Jérôme Lindon, the publisher of Robbe-Grillet, Butor and Claude Simon, from her studies of recent French literature or from her knowing Nathalie Sarraute. She realises that there is some common ground between her writing and ...”

“... to deal with. And why was Gone with the Wind such a huge success? Miss Edwards suggests that there may be an analogy, in these Depression years, with the hysterical response to Lindbergh. Or has it to do with bringing together a very recently split continent through the sort of romantic saga that is always called feminine, though men readers and critics much ...”

“... scene in the middle distance, the way it is ploughed in. This was a surprising wedding present, we may suppose, to paint for the daughter of a local squire, but Rosenthal reminds us that the most routine agricultural processes were felt to be poetic, and he quotes some passages from Constable’s beloved Bloomfield on the ‘fat’ning treasure from the ...”