Frances Partridge
PROMINENT among the year's harvest, Richard Holmes's Coleridge (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.95) is absolutely up to his high standard and a book that is bound to last. The hero and subsidiary characters do not have their qualities hung upon them like Christmas decorations; one is in their physical presence, they grow, live and interact, thanks to the author's brilliant powers of description and analysis, above all to his use of adjectives. Yes indeed, Coleridge 'leaps out of these pages brilliant, animated, endlessly provoking.' (The tragi-comic hysteria of Pantisocracy has never been better described.) In Citizens (Viking, £20), Simon Schama has adopted a highly original approach to the French Revolution, by making the characters dominate their background. The effect is impressive and the huge cast disentangles itself with masterly skill, though I could wish for less haste towards the end.
Jigsaw (Hamish Hamilton, £12.95) by Sybille Bedford, easily out-tops the year's novels by means of the rare distinction of the writing and her great gift for creating atmosphere.
Lastly, The Letters of Lydia Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes, edited by Polly Hill and Richard Keynes (Deutsch, £17.95) gives joy to the reader, not so much by creative activity as simply by the conjunc- tion of two wonderful personalities.
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