The Spectator on holiday
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Guedalla goes on to list not only young Arthur's books but also those of Napoleon, which is not surprising when you remember that Guedalla is one of those writers whose style is built on the fiction that all our ends are ordained in our beginnings. The trouble is that the style can be very seductive, as I rediscover now that Hodder and Stoughton have republished his The Duke (£4.50). The numbered keys to the annotations are printed down the outside margin of each page, which gives the book a flyblown patina of antiquity which might have pleased Guedalla but certainly doesn't please me. I was practically at Quatre Bras before I stopped trying to brush invisible cake-crumbs off the page. But what a delightful read; in fact the most satisfying and sardonic novel I have enjoyed this year.
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