[B] is in many ways compelling and distinctive, yet it manipulates the reader's uncertainties to the point where he may suspect that the pleasures of manipulation have outrun the idea of relevance to a theme. Not that the theme invites anything simplistic. A successful but unhappy and increasingly alienated writer called Beard is writing a book about an unsuccessful writer called B. whom he has apparently (though not certainly) known and who is now dead. The reader's initial suspicion is that B. is a projection or alter ego of Beard, and the book does not dismiss this suspicion, making Beard say indeed at one point: 'I seemed to be acquiring a remarkable resemblance to my own character, B.' Although B. is fictionalised as having his own way of life, quite different from that of Beard, and although they meet and talk together as separate persons, the reader's...