John Harding and the courage to be true to oneself

I think the ability and perhaps more importantly the courage to be true to oneself is what marks out good writing. That for me is what comes over in the Harding book. The book may have its clumsy moments in some of the comedy but this is a minor caveat when set beside the genuineness of his style and the thoughts and feelings which he has expressed.

To attempt a highly literary style with a surfeit of self-consciousness you need to have a very special gift and a high intellect. Harding sensibly rejects the high literary style and this gives his book an endearing and personal quality. Compare this to Donna Tartt in The Secret History who masks the vacuity of her work and characters with a veil of faux sophistication and arch mannerism that immediately alienates the reader. I could see this on reexamining the opening pages of The Secret History in the bookshop this evening.