“... to any but the unnaturally well-informed. To write that ‘like Murdoch in The Black Prince, Golding also moved into metafictional mode in The Paper Men (1984)’ with that purposive, energetic-sounding verb ‘moved into’, is meaningless unless it is explained that William Golding’s The Paper Men was a ...”

“... up residence in 1779, and other learned societies joined it. In 1815, the young doctor Benjamin Golding opened his home on Leicester Place ‘every morning to treat the poverty-stricken population of largely distressed Irish labourers and costermongers inhabiting the hovels and tenements in the area’. Demand was so high that three years later he founded ...”

“... tells us that the concern of Cubism was ‘the solid, tangible reality of things’, while John Golding, in a standard work on the subject, defines it as ‘the fusion of various views of a figure or an object into one coherent whole’; and Marshall McLuhan sums up received opinion on the subject by saying that ‘Cubism, by giving the inside and ...”

“... and the boulders flash and sizzle.’ Bellow is not one of those purely imaginative writers like Golding or Ian McEwan who invent copiously and logically from first premises. You cannot imagine him wondering what it is like to be an ape married to a young woman writer who is having trouble with her second novel after the success of the first. Or wondering ...”

“... remember any names?There would be some names that would not be recognised now; figures like Louis Golding who was popular in that day. I just picked them out of some magazine or book. So about half of this combative magazine, this Scorpion, was filled with these platitudes from London literary figures.Were you flattered?Oh, yes. They felt a social obligation ...”

“... children, were elaborate cakes and the latest iPhone.She was fond of a quote she’d found from William Golding. ‘I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men,’ it said. ‘They are far superior and always have been.’ Most of the women thought this was a bit untrue, but Rania was very much herself. When her brother-in-law Tariq ...”