But I've not kept up the momentum and I'm wondering if it's not a book about linguistics or neuroscience in not a very good disguise.
I can see Venn diagrams and tabulations looming up in chapters far ahead. I'm a bit frightened and might prefer to just read Dover Beach instead without worrying about it,
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
I will battle on, though, who would valiant be in the face of what even the most illustrious and admirable see fit to do with poetry although this book, as much as any other, as complete and brilliant though it may be, compellingly makes the case for taking poetry out of universities.
I saw The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters by Enid Blyton in a charity shop window on Wednesday and went in and made it my own. It is a complete joy without even having to consider questions of irony or authorial intention. And the hero is called Fatty. Of course he is.
