For literary herberts

Having been unable to afford the luxury of a University education, much less at one of the best seats of learning in the UK, I found that a lot of this work is packed with esoteric and scholarly references. That doesn't make it inaccessible but it's not a free ride either.

Whilst reading it I spent more time picking up a dictionary and scribbling down names of authors and works to refer to than I did hacking my way through the thickets in the primary text. Nothing wrong with that of course provided that you have the time and inclination to do it.

To be fair to James, it's also what he did when he read - and read widely - mostly off the curriculum. In the end the journey is fairly rewarding; I treated it as an entertaining skeletal bibliography which certainly helped to fill some of my potholes of ignorance with a measure of understanding.

If you're a fan of his work and you like to read a lot, this is definitely worth the time.

7/10