Richard Cobb
The books that I have most enjoyed reading this year are From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet by Vik ram Seth (Chatto), Will and Circumstance: Montes- quieu, Rousseau and the French Revolution by Norman Hampson (Duckworth), and The Reef by Edith Wharton (Virago).
The travel books that are the most en- joyable to read are about journeys that were extremely uncomfortable and occa- sionally perilous. There is any amount of discomfort and quite a few perils in Mr Seth's book, which is also wonderfully visual and with an acute sensitivity to speech, gesture and stance. It is beautifully
written, always in a low key, and is enliven- ed by a gentle and kindly humour. The author is disarmingly modest and treats himself as a slightly comical figure.
Despite its forbidding title, Norman Hampson's book is also a very good read and, on frequent occasions, also a very good laugh, especially at the expense of the impossible Marat. But it is a serious book which has as much bearing on our understanding of the totalitarians of our own times as of those of the Robespierre- Saint-Just-Brissot ilk. It is also about intolerance, knowing what is best for the people (who cannot be trusted to find out for themselves) and political fanatics who go for simple overall solutions, Unanimity and the General Will (alas, still with us) and who believe that the purpose of the State is the moral regeneration of its citizens. It should be compulsory reading for some members of the Left. But I doubt whether they would read the book, or would under- stand its message if they did,
I came to Edith Wharton late in life, one of the pleasures of near-retirement. The Reef is a wonderful novel about a weak man, a very cautious woman and a pretty governess who is unselfish as well as sharp.
The book well illustrates the ambivalence of that condition: half servant, half gentlewoman. It. is also penetrated by its author's delight in France and the land- scape of Burgundy. Virago are to be con- gratulated on having made this sensitive story once more available.
I haven't read any bad books this year. There is a simple remedy: I never read Updike, Faulkner or Hemingway.
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