More sinister than sweet

Ordinarily, I love books that answer questions I’ve never asked, but Simon May’s baffling book has blown my mind. The self-deprecator in me wants to tell you I’m too stupid to understand a word of it. The rest of me suspects that this is a sneaking yet sparkling satire on what a university education will get you (£50,000 of debt and the authority to pronounce a penguin cuter than a mermaid).

I like the visiting professor of philosophy at King’s College London very much. ‘What is a bear with the head of a wolf?’, he demands. ‘Who is a human with cat’s eyes? What is the inner world of a sphinx “really”?’ He writes brilliantly and quotes exuberantly. The problem is his subject. Early on he explains that his approach to ‘Cute’ was inspired by Susan Sontag’s Notes On ‘Camp’ and Harry Frankfurt’s essay ‘On Bullshit’. But the former was so of its moment and the latter so enduring.