The duty of the satirist is to go one worse than reality

March 14, 2013 11:03 AM

Five classic book reviews from the New Statesmen archive: Including V S Pritchett on Orwell's 1984, V S Naipaul on Memento Mori by Muriel Spark and Martin Amis on J G Ballard's High Rise.
posted by thatwhichfalls (4 comments total)

I guess spoiler alerts REALLY weren't a thing in 1925, huh? "Screw you, here's the entire story, including the murder of the title character in the final pages."
posted by incomple at 11:24 AM on March 14, 2013

I think you'll find that spoiler alerts are a form of infantile hand-wringing that evolved with the internet.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:27 AM on March 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

V.S. Naipaul saying something nice about someone other than V.S. Naipaul? Surely this must be some sort of hoax?
posted by yoink at 11:29 AM on March 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

V.S. Naipaul saying something nice about someone other than V.S. Naipaul? Surely this must be some sort of hoax?

And a woman to boot. A reminder that you should always pay more attention to an artist's work than his quotes in the press.
posted by otio at 11:56 AM on March 14, 2013