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The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays by Simon Leys
JUDGES' COMMENTS
The title of this collection of essays sets the ironic tone of the book for Leys’ ‘hall’, far from being useless, opens up perspectives into a culture of which we know shamefully little. Another specialty is the literature of France, but he’s equally at home with Anglophone writers. Leys’ specialty is China and, knowledgeable though he is, he writes as a learner and discoverer of the treasures of the world’s oldest continuing civilisation. In doing so, he invites the reader into new realms of knowledge.
Irrespective of their length — from the short to the substantial — these essays read like distillations: every sentence is shaped, every judgment considered. Leys’ great gift is to make all his subjects seem specialties; doorways into what he calls ‘the inner chambers of the spirit’.