PositiveThe Irish Times (IRE)Have you ever wondered what a book of reminiscences by Uncle Monty from Withnail & I might be like? Well, look no further. Edmund White’s A Previous Life reads precisely how one might imagine it, with all the lengthy asides, meandering passages and endless high-falutin’ referencing one would expect ... But then, White is too intelligent for such self-indulgence, so perhaps this messy text is a masterpiece, and my confusion and irritation evidence only of my philistinism. Certainly, I wondered, more than once, if I was reading a parody, some sort of extended, academic in-joke. Except it was too long and drawn out to be funny and, alas, the punchline never came.
