Age and guile

No quibbles about this past weeks' reading, outflanking Murdoch's on all fronts, more than equal to, um, Sea^2:

Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils: Retiring to the coast (in this case Welsh) in good order for final orders. Lucky Jim may be funnier, and is no doubt more iconic, but this is richer, and no less cutting, however sympathetic it may seem to some. Leader's bio, letters, etc, have had KA in the lit-news of late: Dirda's summary of the ouevre (what?! even I'd read LJ by then) and a more enthusiastic take lead me to want to check out the genre play of The Green Man and The Alteration; I don't think that overall I'll take to him as I did, for example, to Anthony Burgess, or even to Amis fils, but TOD was not to be missed.

Tom Stoppard, The Real Thing: I had the good fortune to see this performed by the replacement B'way cast (how meta is that?), and the further good fortune that my date was too flummoxed by my attentions to pay much heed to what was going on up on stage. Good fortune held, it was the real thing: Yes, reader, I married her.