Alan Jacobs


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The history of literature is replete with folly but the news that Sebastian Faulks is writing a novel featuring Reginald Jeeves and Bertram Wooster knocks all other blunders into a cocked-hat. We are not gruntled.

Madness, not to put too fine a point on it, seems the only explanation for such a project. Perhaps, like Gussie Fink-Nottle, Mr Faulks is a glutton for punishment. Like the newt-fancier, one supposes he must spend a good deal of time staring at himself in the mirror.

As for the rest of us, well, like the BBC’s present lamentable adaptation of Blandings this news has us groaning and wincing “like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch”.

Alex Massie. In calling this “the worst idea in literary history” Alex has significantly understated the degree of the catastrophe.