An Adventure Without Control
Matthew de Voy is a failed writer, with one book forgotten and another abandoned. For income he works for his wife’s business, which she runs under her maiden name. His City clients have never read anything, but can afford to pay de Voy twenty grand to build them libraries full of books they’ve never cracked. De Voy collects rare editions in his spare time and knows that the educated manner has cosmetic value in a servant. Servility sounds so much better delivered in a cut-glass accent. It’s like that moment in The Remains of the Day, when the new American master of Darlington Hall demands of his butler: ‘I mean to say, Stevens, this is a genuine grand old English house, isn’t it? That’s what I paid for. And you’re a genuine old-fashioned English butler, not just some waiter pretending to be one. You’re the real thing, aren’t you? That’s what I wanted, isn’t that what I have?’
Max Dunbar reviews Ivo Stourton‘s The Book Lover’s Tale.
Picture writing
“I was very suspicious of high culture, not of low, and it took a long time for me to crack the code and say, ‘You know what, Picasso’s a pretty good cartoonist.’ And at that point I could begin to look at Picasso thinking he was okay. Many of his paintings are really hilarious. They’re […]