It always seems churlish to compare a writer’s new book unfavourably with earlier works and literary history is full of instances of apparently purblind hostility to writers who had left their own straight and narrow paths to experiment, enlarge their vision, chart new territory and so on. But it is also true that authors can become fixated on projects which serve their own needs more than that of any reader. Take Finnegan’s Wake for example- Joyce spent seventeen years and …

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