Francis King
The most remarkable, though not the best, book of the year was John Osborne's Almost a Gentleman (Faber, £14.99). A Japanese scientist once described to me, during a fuel crisis, how he had devised a method of extracting gas from sewage. It is that kind of gas which gives Osborne's book its malodorous and explosive force. Disgust has produced a disgusting book; but it has also produced a tremendously vivid and amusing one.
The best novel, a work of genius, was
Isaac Bashevis Singer's Scum (Cape, £14.99). I was also greatly impressed by James Hankins' Plato in the Italian Renais- sance (Leiden, Brill). Life is too short for most books which extend to two volumes and some 850 pages; but not in this case.
The most over-publicised, though not most overrated, book of the year was Martin Amis' Time's Arrow (Cape, £13.99), with many reviewers occupying inordinate space merely to announce that Amis had fallen below his usual form.
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