“... or no acquaintance with Roussel’s oeuvre’. Written about an artist who did not ‘class himself as belonging to any school’, it is, aptly enough (and not only because it is the first analysis in English of Roussel and his work since Rayner Heppenstall’s short and now wholly superseded 1966 volume), a book in a ...”

“... locked in a struggle for business on the streets of the Netherlands, part of a fratricidal postal war across northern Europe from which Royal Mail – soon, if the government gets its way, to be privatised like its Dutch and German peers – is not immune. Privatising old state post companies doesn’t necessarily make it easier for rivals to compete with ...”

“... drama of Brexit. Milne dismissed those concerned with Brexit as engaged in an unserious ‘culture war’. But one does not always get to choose which war to fight.In the wake of Labour’s defeat a year ago, some fantasised – with the benefit of hindsight – about what might have been if Corbyn had handed over the reins ...”

“... this came to an end in 1938, by decree not of the Germans but of their own government. After the war the V+W collaborative enterprise never made a real comeback, though their lyrics, set to superb jazz music by their own composer, Jaroslav Jezek, are alive in Prague to this day. Through Werich, Havel caught a glimpse of the ribald end of the intellectual ...”

“... believing that all spirits are either angels or devils, all drilled and in uniform and for ever at war and under direct orders either from God or Satan. If you believe in the Principle of Plenitude, or Great Chain of Being – that is, believe that God has caused life wherever there is room – it seems plain that there is room for life between ourselves and ...”

“... of mind’ enables the extreme political complexity of primate society, with its rigid class system, dynasties, alliances and rebellions, and later, when the hominids and language came along, allowed skills and practices to be spread and passed down through generations.If this extraordinary stacking of world-models in modern humans is a true ...”

“... in 1935, is as blunt as Joan Crawford. (Her mother once told her that their family belonged to no class, but that’s a fine myth for an Eduene to shrug off on a Joan.) And Didion likes names as much as clothes. When young and in Paris, she looked up Didion in the telephone directory and found a lot. To which I’d add that ‘Maria Wyeth’ – she is the ...”

“... legs – Corrosive, hairy, rank – and, shameless, begs For Pestilence to fuck her if he can, For War to come, and come again, again.In the evening I might turn to the overwrought adulterous rhapsodies of Marry Me (1971), in which a man strokes a woman’s arm and says, ‘No one’s ever told you how cunty you are,’ and regret that the sexual revolution ...”

“... corrupted by a political assault on locality, that humans unable or unwilling to engage in a war they can’t win respond by venturing into forbidden depths. As the first Thatcherite towers sprung up in Docklands, and downriver parts of London agreed to behave as if the fictions of J.G. Ballard were planning documents, the painter Gavin Jones, working ...”

“... and nullity the opium, perhaps, of the English rectory and manor-house during the troubled inter-war period. With an extraordinary unanimity, good representative Introductions to Hamlet and critical essays on it speak of it as ‘the most enigmatic play in the canon’, ‘the most problematic play ever written by Shakespeare or any other playwright’: a ...”

“... with time and/or funds and/ or stamina running out. While no serious artist ever wants gender or class or any other contingency or circumstance adduced as any sort of an excuse for anything, it’s also a fact that The Last Samurai is a novel in which we witness WHY ARE THEY FIGHTING? the captivating sibylline voice continually interrupted by that of the ...”

“... at the sheer unlikeliness of what he’s up to: Einstein bent the Universe     To make war obsolete. Ford swore his wished-for wheels would rush     The century off its feet. The Soviet Butcher Bird announced     The new age with a tweet.The butcherbird is in fact native to Australia, but that doesn’t stop Hughes punning on its name in ...”

“... silicon eyeballs and pricey MRS degrees from Stanford. Not to mention the usual klatsch of ruling-class hangers-on: radical Botoxers; Pilates Instructors for Peace and Zero Body Fat; members of the pedicure-rights community – all Teetering-for-Hillary in black sheath dresses and fuck-me pumps. Since it takes a village, we anticipate, too, the requisite ...”

“... the Convivio, written in his first years of exile, the nobility is assessed more positively as a class which, despite being infiltrated and corrupted by merchants and moneymen, has the duty of providing the community with a peaceful, civilised existence under the auspices of the empire. This shift in position, which now recognises the value of noble birth ...”

“... sympathy with the scale of what he is describing, the medium of it, and its purpose. The idea of a class or even of a whole population taking ship to better itself, or even to survive, will have been disagreeable to him, with his promotion of passivity and his feudal and static playing-card version of society. It wasn’t in him to see desperate emigrants as ...”