The Internet preserves a young man’s videos of his shoes, but forgets a significant author’s important works:
I suppose that publishing jejune details of one’s day-to-day life gives to that life (in the mind of the publisher, at least) a significance that it would otherwise lack. And since the means to publish such details to the world are now within the reach of almost everyone, and many people avail themselves of these means, the general or average level of self-importance, commonly known as self-esteem, in the population will have risen as a consequence. Some might see this as a good thing, but I can only conceive of it as a force for the narrowing of mental horizons. An age of information is thus perfectly compatible with an age of general ignorance of everything except that which most immediately concerns oneself.
Who is the author, and what are his two books, which Dalrymple praises?
I believe he is referring to E Spencer Shew and his A Companion to Murder and the second volume, which is similarly titled.
Certainly, we are republishing these books and asked TD to write the foreword to the first volume, and little is known of Mr Spencer Shew.
Simon Leys has died.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/pierre-ryckmans-early-books-triggered-outrage-and-controversy-in-europe/story-e6frg8n6-1227020881584
Dalrymple somewhere wrote that Leys was the greatest living essayist.
Ah, Dalrymple has wrote an obit:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/a-fond-farewell-to-a-writer-of-wit-and-intellectual-integrity/story-e6frg6zo-1227022258389
Thanks, Neunder! We’ll get this up on the site soon.