wotiwrote

I have many dealings with pompous people (and I don't mean I spend a lot of time talking to myself). Pompousness best reveals itself with a lack of humour. And definitely a lack of insight. Occasionally, however, even the most pompous can become sympathetic characters. I'm looking through the second volume of Anthony Burgess's autobiography (or, as he would pompously call them, his 'confessions') and came across this gem:

When book-buyers buy books, they look for sex, violence and hard information.

(This is a typical Burgess pronouncement and makes you feel like going, 'Oh yeah?'. However, he continues....)

They get these from Arthur Hailey, whose characters discuss problems of hotel management while committing adultery before being beaten up.

(That sentence encompasses almost the whole of Hailey's writing in 20 words.)

Burgess is pompous and his non-fiction prose tends to be pretentious, ponderous, and portentous. Mining for gems is hard work but they are there. Just not enough to warrant life-long searching.