This book is an engaging rant against the folly, claptrap, self-indulgence and hypocrisy of mankind, written in the brisk and trenchant style which readers of the author’s Spectator articles will recognise.
This book is an engaging rant against the folly, claptrap, self-indulgence and hypocrisy of mankind, written in the brisk and trenchant style which readers of the author’s Spectator articles will recognise. Theodore Dalrymple has chosen a large target, which yields plenty of choice material. The more revered the individual and the more widespread the sentiment, the more acerbic the language in which Dalrymple mocks and reviles it. Not since Christopher Hitchens launched his assault on Mother Teresa have so many sacred cows been publicly slaughtered in one short volume.
Connoisseurs will particularly relish the footnotes in which Dalrymple adds the odd observation too outrageous or irrelevant to be included in the text, and defines for the benefit of his readers such expressions as Band Aid (‘an organisation of self-promoting hypocrites’) or the European Community (‘a means by which aging politicians can retain their importance for the rest of their lives without subjecting themselves to the humiliations, inconveniences and tedium of elections’).
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