Volume 34, Number 16 · October 22, 1987
Tight Little Island
By Michael Wood
Coasting
by Jonathan Raban
Simon and Schuster, 302 pp., $17.95
England is a semiologist's paradise, a novel that Henry James didn't quite write. It is a land where all is sign and nuance and cryptic scruple. People decode your house, your accent, your socks, your taste in magazines and movies, the way you talk about the weather. A puzzled look comes over their faces at the simplest remark, as if you had suddenly dropped into Sanskrit. They don't have any trouble understanding what you have said, they are trying to work out what you mean. This is particularly difficult if by any chance you mean what you say. Asked how you are, you don't answer, 'Fine' or 'Great,' you say, 'Surviving,' or 'Struggling along,' or 'Not too bad, considering.' That's if you really feel fine. If you felt lousy you might say you felt great. We make wonderful spies because we think the double life is the only life.
Review, 2664 words
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