Master of the merry-go-round

Sprawling, teeming with people and flooded with an almost malevolent brilliance, this book is the literary equivalent of some vast conurbation. As with a conurbation, it is difficult to identify the heart – and heart here means not merely centre but humanity. Trapped, as in one of Mark Gertler’s most famous pictures, on a constantly accelerating roundabout, the characters all seem to be in imminent danger of being hurled into oblivion by the centrifugal force of a powerfully churning imagination.