["Eating People Is Wrong"] is full of jokes and witticisms of almost every description, but there are no funny situations, and the few comic episodes that occur are much too light, and perhaps also too tired, to stand up against the predominant, tragic predicament that is Treece's life. Treece's predicament is tragic, but his story is not a tragedy, because it is lacking in the act—the proof of life diminished or increased at whatever cost—that is required to complete the movement that starts with the first sentence of this book. What we have here is aimlessness inside countless circles of busy, monotonous aimlessness, and even if this spectacle were more richly decorated than it is with jokes and puns and so on, it would not be good enough. Mr. Bradbury has created a serious and very human character, and has obscured him with jugglers. (p. 97)

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