SOURCE: “Finger Food,” in New Statesman, Vol. 125, No. 4306, October 18, 1996, pp. 45–46.

In the following review, Hall offers a negative assessment of Touch, criticizing the work for focusing too heavily on ideas over actuality.

In an ideal world you would be reading this article with your eyes closed. It would be printed in braille that was sumptuously and variously textured. As you read, the bottom half of your body would be lapped by waves of warm milk, while the top half would be expertly massaged. Alas, the New Statesman is printed in cheap ink on flimsy paper, and this article is one of the least sensuous of things—a book review. One can but dream.

Gabriel Josipovici is a dreamer. In his day job, as a professor at the University of Sussex, he has produced a steady stream of sturdy academic tomes, such as The Lessons of Modernism (1977) and The...