Intellectualism is back in vogue

The English have never been ones for lounging around in black polo necks, chain-smoking and discussing the Marxist implications of a full stop. Intellectualism is a habit we leave to others.

Compared to friends across the Atlantic or over the Channel, the rare beast we call the English literary intellectual has been starved. Until recently, their means of sustenance has been limited to a few publications. The London Review of Books is an oasis in the intellectual desert of the British Isles, even the cakes in the café are “independent-market, surprising and energetic”. Recent issues included a spat between Establishment figures Pankaj Mishra and Niall Ferguson and a poem by the late WG Sebald. It’s always the same: political allegiances are stamped on their highbrows and it may have been a good poem, but it’s hardly a discovery, etc. etc.

In terms of new and exciting foreign fiction, Granta does remain interesting.