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Vintage: London 2019
Francis Mulhern
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Serious noticing is fundamental to the work of significant writers; it is how they ‘save life from itself’, James Wood maintains, in the essay that gives his new collection its title and foremost emphasis. But the phrase has a dual reference, also denoting what Wood would say he does himself in much, perhaps most of his own writing: reviews, not of the ephemeral kind aptly called ‘notices’ but relatively long, considered critical pieces better designated ‘essays’. His subtitle makes the claim without hesitation, and it is not irrelevant that it echoes one of the most distinguished examples of the genre, T. S. Eliot’s