Thanks James. Are you a PLS member? They're a good lot.

And now I will have to find said book.

Also suggestions of a mini-Browning-Renaissance in the late 1960s.

Looks like *something* happened in 2020. (Thanks for this, now off to read the Dannie Abse one.)

Yes! Whereas earnestness always gets the benefit of the doubt, however unserious the end it's put to.

Poetry, but Vidyan Ravinthiran's, The Million-Petaled Flower of Being Here [The Old Fools]

Also wonder whether the book/literary world just isn't quite bad at recognising comedy in general. Let alone celebrating it.

This quote is absolute gold. I think with Ishiguro the humour is often so black most readers don't want to see it. Even Never Let Me Go is a bit funny...

Ishiguro: "The Remains of the Day was supposed to be a comedy. It was a kind of riff on PG Wodehouse, The butler was supposed to be funny. I probably find him funnier than most people do. The idea of a guy who doesn’t have any sense of humour is quite funny." (unused quote from an interview I did)

Criminally underrated, that one