Henry Miller

One cannot say his wide-armed embrace of the sordid and vulgar much appeals, or his kneejerk contempt for most of the people in the shabby circles his narrators move

through in New York and Paris, but his general enthusiasm for moment to moment living is not intolerable, though the texts are overgrown with the poison ivy of exaggeration and "poetic" flights of fancy; one drop of LeCarré's blood in his veins would kill him instantly.