Giles Auty
It is reassuring to learn how difficult or even impossible life seemed at times to another long-term critic for The Spectator: this paper's lively and controversial review- er of films 1933-41, Graham Greene. The Life of Graham Greene, Volume II, 1939- 1955 by Norman Sherry (Cape, £20) moved me by its sense, candour and understanding of the agonies of conscience suffered so often by converts to Roman Catholicism. While Greene's role as a critic was small beer in a life of considerable courage and achievement, honest exercise of the critical craft should not necessarily be sneezed at. Brian Sewell's The Reviews that Caused The Rumpus (Bloomsbury, £12.99) brings us 100 examples of waspish wisdom by the dis- sident art critic of the Evening Standard. Sewell favours baroque overkill to quietly strangling his opponents in a corner. Inspite of excessive use of words such as eximious and cacfuego there is much that is original and sound.
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