USEFUL WORDS FOR BOOK REVIEWS SIR,—lt is much to be
regretted that Mr. Bernard Levin, in your issue for December 27, was com- pelled through lack of space to cut short his cata- logue of words suitable for book reviews. To assist his further researches, I append herewith an extract from my forthcoming work The Reviewer's Lexicon (O.U.P., 50s.):
Accomplished, agreeable, Angst, Angus Wil- son, archetype, astringent, A. J. Ayer, Betjeman, bitchy, born writer, by and large, catalyst, Charlus, chichi, cliche, clinical, compassion, collie, contemporary, creative, crystallisation (see Stendhal), delicious, deliriously (funny), disquieting, dotty, Empson, excruciating, father (mother)-figure, Freudian, Geiger counter, gim- mick, Grigson, historicity, Howards End, inte- gration, intellectual integrity, jejune, Leavis, mellifluous, Nancy Mitford, nostalgic, panache. pastiche, penetrating, polarisation, predicament (esp. artist's), private myth, Proustian, round the bend, saddening, scholarly, semantics, sensi- bility (exquisite), significant, Stendhal (see crystallisation), subtopian, Swiftian misanthropy, twentyish, unequivocal, voulu, Weltanschauung, whimsy, Zeitgeist.
—Yours faithfully,
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