ESSAYS
Who's Afraid Of Jane Austen? by Henry Hitchings
Published by John Murray, £7.99
2/5
IN A NUTSHELL
The author aims to bring the big beasts of literature down to a size snug enough to fit in your frontal lobe.
REVIEW
So many books, so little time. Henry Hitchings has an idea to tackle the imbalance.
This premature stocking filler is a collection of mini essays on the big hitters - the Austens, the Joyces, the Homers - with the stated aim of bringing the blighters down to size.
The book is subtitled ... "How To Really Talk About Books You Haven't Read" and the temptation to point out that a work aspiring to the affectation of literary snobbery should perhaps think again about the deployment of a split infinitive is too easy. So I won't go there.
Instead, I'll point out another flaw. The author talks about how books are talked about and talks about the "dangerous high-brow types" and how they talk about the books they talk about but fails to give the lowdown on the books themselves. No help there then.
However, these essays are broadly entertaining and informative in a general way.
Unfortunately, they also have the tone of a well-meaning school special assembly in which some colourfully-jumpered loon blows a raspberry and shouts "Hey kids, I'm Christopher Cannabis. See what fun I am." Pause. "But I'm deadly serious too."
