Faintly repelled by elaborate theories of irony and by taxonomies of it, D.J. Enright has set himself to muster instances, observations, localities and anecdotes. There is no continuing argument, and not much argufying even, but there are plenty of penetrating glances. 'Rather than theory, it is something resembling "practical criticism" that this book will concern itself with: the exploration of individual ironies as they are manifest in life as well as in literature.' This is good-naturedly loose, the recipe for something resembling a scrapbook, a scrappy one. 'When I was making notes for this book I came, before long, to see irony everywhere.' Likewise when you were making a book for these notes.

LRB 4 December 1986 | PDF Download