Colin Welch
RARELY does a reviewer truly enjoy a book he or she is reviewing. He has too many notes to take — 20 pages on average I find. Then at the end he has to ask himself, on behalf of the reader: would he have enjoyed the book if he'd read it for pleasure? An exception for me this year was Claudio Magris's Danube: A Sen- timental Journey from the Sources to the Black Sea (Collins Harvill, £15). Again and again as I read, I laid my pen aside and stared into vacancy, surprised by joy, arrested by some profound or startling insight or flash of beauty, forced-to muse or reflect by some unusual train of thought or bold conjunction of facts. I commend this rich treasure house to all who know and love the Danube or would like td know it better, as is becoming daily easier.
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