I have been devoted since Bert died to writing by Anita Brookner. My devotion became a joke to others and then a bore. Nobody I know reads her. People's eyes glaze over but mine track and focus. I discovered a few of her novels in the little library in town where I'd gone to get…

  The White Flaneur at the Main Intersection       [Haffenden:] What is your criterion for judging what is most valuable in a work of art? [Brookner:] That's very difficult to answer. I think it would be radiance, a power beyond the image: vision. The National Gallery has just bought a portrait by David called M. Blauw,…