Short description
A book that restores our faith in the central importance of literature and criticism to our civilization. In the twenty six pieces, Dr. Dalrymple ranges over literature and ideas, from Shakespeare to Marx.
Long description
This new collection of essays by the author of "Life at the Bottom" bears the unmistakable stamp of Theodore Dalrymple's bracingly clear-sighted view of the human condition. It suggests comparison with the work of George Orwell. In these twenty-six pieces, Dr. Dalrymple ranges over literature and ideas, from Shakespeare to Marx, from the breakdown of Islam to the legalization of drugs. Informed by years of medical practice in a wide variety of settings, his acquaintance with the outer limits of human experience allows him to discover the universal in the local and the particular, and makes him impatient with the humbug and obscurantism that have too long marred our social and political life. His writings are incisive yet undogmatic, beautifully composed and devoid of disfiguring jargon.
Review
Dalrymple is a writer of genius: lucid, unsentimental, and profoundly honest.... He is one of the great essayists of our age. -Denis Dutton, Arts and Letters. An urgent, important, almost an essential book...elegantly written, conscientiously argued, provocative, and fiercely committed. -Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Literary Supplement. His gift for storytelling will keep readers turning pages. -Christian Century. Theodore Dalrymple is the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams. -Peggy Noonan.