Finally read Meryle Secrest on Berenson. Her contempt for him so blatant one wonders why she wrote the bloody book. We all know he was a circus vaudevillian to be sure but he did provide entertainment for Sunday intellectuals and this was harmless. I went back to read some of his "seminal" works. They are appalling; such word spinning!


Scanned Norman Sherry's first 2 volumes of Greene. As he notes from Updike, "Writing criticism is to writing fiction as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea." Perfect hagiographer is Norman. I must read Greene's film criticism.

I think what I have always missed is the camaraderie of the intellectual elite; it is why I idealized Bloomsbury, why it feels like coming home to read all these familiar stories, to see all these familiar names. Academia would have provided a facsimile, though according to friends who stayed in the ranks they now regret having done so.

Actually the intellectual elite really did exist and do so no more..the Salman Rushdie's are media sillies and would have appalled Greene or Waugh.