Nigel, In the unlikely event you ever attract so unjustly hostile a review, you'll understand "what all the fuss is about." The review is so bad, and one telling point I've neglected to make is that the two tercets in 15 syllable lines are snatched from the context of a 120 line dramatic monologue, the speaker being a lady born in Persia some 400 years ago and presented by the Shah to an English diplomat, who took her to wife. These two tercets further and deepen the reader's understanding of her character, yet Logan presents them as though Davis were speaking in his own voice, "best left to the professionals, the greeting card writers." A dramatic monologue of this power is quite beyond the reach of our friend Barbara Loots and all her staff at Hallmark. This is critical persiflage at its worst. Furthermore, this is not "Kipling in a malarial fit." If I am not mistaken, the demanding form is Browning's. R.S. Gwynn emailed me this link from West Chester, with the note: "Yet another reason to stock up on ammo and head to Florida."
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