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Title: Too much sugar and not enough plum for this fairy
Review: Unremitting jocularity can wear you down. The most dignified thing about these fatuous pages is the title. When I got to John Julius Norwich's favourite first lines (p131) I could feel myself coming over all Leavisite. To the barricades! The smugness is palpable. At least he credits us with recognising a little bit of Dante unaided (p80). For the rest? Middlemarch contains 86 epigraphs? Tfoo! If this makes me 'some dopey critic' (p112 footnote), well, tough
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