Charles Glass
I have to thank Bruce Palling, now the Independent's man in New Delhi, for intro- ducing me to the works of Norman Lewis and, recently, to Lewis himself. Lewis's newest book of 'selected journalism', A View of the World (Eland Books), contains the essay of which he is most proud, which in 1968 exposed the genocide of Indians in Brazil. The 19 other pieces, some previous- ly unpublished, are pure Lewisiana: the chance encounter, the strange view of the familiar, the observer who rarely intrudes on the objects of his attention — all unfailingly well written. Three other books, written at different times but pub- lished coincidentally now in London, con- cern three Saids: Marmaduke Pickthall's Said the Fisherman (Quartet), Emile Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (Zed) and the latest book by Edward Said, After the Last Sky (Faber). The first two are novels about Palestinian Arabs named Said: Pickthall's Said was originally published in 1903, and Habiby's Saeed came out in Israel in 1974 and is now available in English. Both novels are about villains whose predicaments evoke sym- pathy and tell the reader about life, loyalty and betrayal in the Levant. Edward Said's book is a ramble through the land he cannot, as a native born Palestinian Arab refugee, set foot in. Finally, it would be a bad husband indeed who failed to mention his wife's book. The Children's Classified (Pavilion) by Fiona Glass and our sister-in- law, Bunty Ross, is the definitive yellow pages for children in London. It lists for parents such useful items as restaurants in which waiters do not faint dead away and patrons gasp in horror -as in a Bateman cartoon when anyone under the age of 17 is brought in. This excellent reference book is worth a mention here, as Christmas approaches, because the publishers, appalling people in every respect, have done nothing to advertise or promote a
guide whose proceeds will go some way towards supporting the authoresses' 11 children.
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