Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Carson, Ciaran - Robert MacFarlane (review date 19 November 1999)

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Robert MacFarlane (review date 19 November 1999)

SOURCE: MacFarlane, Robert. “Solid but Sublime.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5042 (19 November 1999): 22.

[In the following review, MacFarlane discusses the structure and language of Carson's Fishing for Amber.]

Judging a book by its cover is generally agreed to be bad behaviour. But what about by its bibliography? Fishing for Amber, which is coyly subtitled A long story, carries a source list as well stocked as a second-hand bookshop. Running a finger along the titles, one discovers just what went to make up this odd and engaging volume. There are encyclopaedias, dictionaries, miscellanies, hagiologies, a shelfful of books on Vermeer and Dutch Golden Age painting, herbals, handbooks, histories of Esperanto, tobacco, submarines and microscopes, and much more besides, including a couple of works by Borges.

What sort of a book could possibly amalgamate so much...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Clair Wills (review date 4 March 1988)
   2. John Drexel (essay date winter 1989)
   3. Mark Ford (review date 19 January 1989)
   4. John Lucas (review date 3 August 1990)
   5. Neil Corcoran (essay date 2 November 1990)
   6. Ben Howard (essay date April 1992)
   7. Michael Glover (review date 12 February 1994)
   8. Clair Wills (essay date 25 March 1994)
   9. Calvin Bedient (essay date October 1994)
   10. Guinn Batten (essay date summer 1995)
   11. Patricia Craig (review date 31 May 1996)
   12. Lawrence Norfolk (essay date 27 September 1996)
   13. Richard Eder (essay date 12 March 1997)
   14. Charles M. Madigan (review date 16 March 1997)
   15. David Nicholson (review date 22 July 1997)
   16. Denis Donoghue (essay date 27 November 1997)
   17. Terry Eagleton (review date 12 December 1997)
   18. Henry Hitchings (review date 12 December 1997)
   19. Christian Wiman (review date February 1998)
   20. Ben Howard (essay date spring 1998)
   21. John Kerrigan (essay date April 1998)
   22. Emily D'Aulaire (essay date October 1998)
   23. William Pratt (review date autumn 1999)
   24. Robert MacFarlane (review date 19 November 1999)
   25. David Carr-Gomm (review date 31 March 2001)
   26. Gregory Dart (review date 20 April 2001)
   27. Bernadette Murphy (review date 18 October 2001)
   28. Michelle Reale (review date fall 2002)
   29. Sean O'Brien (review date 10 January 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright