25 NOVEMBER 1989, Page 40

Anita Brookner

THERE is no contest. The noblest book of the year was Primo Levi's Other People's Trades (Michael Joseph, £12.95) which conferred a genuine feeling of renewal and refreshment. This was followed by George Painter's Proust (Chatto & Windus, £20) which brought with it the added benefit of re-reading the novel — the novel through three sunny summer months. Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum (Secker & Warburg, £12.95) managed to be both the best and the worst: enviable exuberance lavished on tainted, even mis- chievous subject matter. As an eminent Jewish scholar once remarked, 'Nonsense is nonsense, but the history of nonsense is a subject'. Eco managed to occupy the mid- dle ground between these two proposi- tions.