19 OCTOBER 1985, page 32

A Sentimental Intellectual

Duncan Fallowell OCCASIONAL PROSE by Mary McCarthy Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95 S ome of this is unreadable, for example the pieces on Solzhenitsyn, Calvino, Joan Didion, and......

Chess Piece

I wonder about chess — whether it's not half The Answer: Implosion instead of Explosion — an un- manageable planet held in total if brief, eclipse (by the backs of our heads)......