Anita Brookner
The most underrated novel of the year was Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Poet and Dancer (John Murray, £14.99), a bleak and fright- ening story of one of those symbiotic friendships that end in tragedy. In this way it anticipated the much more reader- friendly Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury, £15.99) but gains a dignity from the comparison. I have a very great affection for The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (Fourth Estate, £12.99), an accom- plished novel of charm and substance, beautifully produced and modestly priced, and thus a reproach to grander and more slapdash houses, My greatest pleasure has been derived from the sumptuously pro- duced and lovingly written Painting and Sculpture in France 1700-1789 by Michael Levey (Yale, £40). Unworthy books, fortu- nately, leave no trace in my memory.
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