Angus Wilson is a British writer of repute who doesn't rattle any skeletons. His latest novel, Setting the World on Fire … is about as old-fashioned—indeed, doddering—a literary gesture as you can get. The only fire is in its title. The book itself is so stodgy that one is led to wonder whether Wilson intended the stodginess to be taken ironically, as a flicker of defiance; after all, it is filled with snatches of intelligence, as English novels generally are. Unfortunately, the intelligence is creakily rooted in those ageless, civilized truths we all wearily assent to, so Wilson's novel never attains enough tension to be defiant. It seems merely out-of-step, lumbering instead of stately….

Wilson's opening is much the best part of his book….

This poetic and accurate rendition of the wendings of a child's mind appears to promise a work of sparkling imagination. Regrettably, the expectation...