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Title: Half facinating literary facts; half phony self-inflation
Review: This is a maddening book. Roughly half consists of facts (I assume - no citations) concerning writers and other creative artists, some of them wonderful. Another quarter states, usually without comment, the causes of death for such artists. And the final quarter consists of spare comments (often just a sentence fragment)on themes of life and death, meant to invoke pity and awe but instead remindful of "Deep Thoughts" written somewhat in the manner of the Cantos, phony and inflated. Imagine something like: "Sophocles. Dante. Heine. Djuna Barnes. Writer." (referring to himself).
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