The Reading List must apologize for its sloppiness in recent issues. Literate readers have written in to call attention to some gaffes and blunders, all committed in the haste brought about by deadline pressure. Peter Hansen of Walpole, N.H., writes: “Fabrizio doesn’t plot to assassinate anybody in The Charterhouse of Parma, least of all Napoleon, whom he worships.” Somehow we got the plot crossed with War and Peace; forgive us. “As for Black Mischief, Emperor Seth is so far from being a cannibal that, like a particularly obtuse U.N. observer in Rwanda, he simply does not have eyes to see what is happening around him.” Though it is, of course, true that in the last paragrph of the book, the hapless newspaperman Boot of the Beast is eaten right Up.
For this week, then, the Reading List will stay mute, licking its wounds and preparLng a really good Christmas list for you next week.
