Oh Faulks off

No, I haven't read anything by Sebastian Faulks. The nearest I got was reading a novel that had, on the back cover, the view that it is "streets ahead of Birdsong". I thought: jeez, if that's the case, Birdsong must be terrible.

Now I see he's got a new novel out. It's 624 pages long and Lisa Appignanesi says what no doubt every other review will say: Human Traces is his most ambitious novel yet.

She tells us: It begins in 1870, when his two heroes are 16, and moves through the First World War. Geographically, the book spans England, France, Austria and Africa, with a foray to America's west coast. Intellectually, it attempts a history of the mind sciences and madness.

Oh God. Wouldn't it be as ambitious to write something like this under 100 pages? Here's a blog I wrote earlier.