A "born novelist", the Daily Telegraph critic declares. "Other writers turn their hand to fiction; this author, one feels, is made for it."
Other reviewers of this Dublin novel concur. "In whatever direction he moves he cannot fail to travel far," the Observer says. "A talent," the Spectator suggests, "evidently capable of contributing something of unique importance to the fiction of our day." The New Statesman goes further: "He is a writer so gifted that one wonders if he practises the Black Art." The Guardian simply commends "a rare and unusual talent".
So which dynamic new Irish writer has so enraptured these English critics? None, actually. The reviews in question were written in the late 1950s and they appeared on the dust-jacket of English writer Gabriel Fielding's 1960 novel, Through Streets Broad and Narrow (based on his sojourn in Dublin, where he studied at Trinity), which I came across last week in a second-hand bookshop.
I quote them here merely to reflect on the fickleness of fame. Clearly, Fielding was considered one of the rising stars of the literary firmament 40 years ago. Yet though he wrote eight novels, most of them highly praised, he was almost forgotten by his death in 1986 and means nothing to today's readers.
Some day, perhaps, his books will come back into fashion. Or perhaps not. As it is, you'll only find him in the odd, second-hand shop, gathering dust along with other novelists much lauded in their time.
Which of today's vaunted novelists will suffer the same fate? I have my own hunches, especially about a few voguish Irish writers, but I'll let time, that most dispassionately cruel of arbiters, take its course.
I'LL tell you what I want, what I really, really want - not to have to read the autobiography of Spice-Girl-turned-global-benefactor Geri Halliwell. Publishers, however, are obviously expecting me to be in a minority of one, because offers well in excess of £500,000 are currently being made for the privilege of relaying her story to the world.
Ronan Keating of the Spice Boys, I mean Boyzone, should take note and get in on the autobiographical act while the good times still roll.
The good times may finally be about to roll for California-born, London-based writer James Thakara, whose mammoth novel, The Book of Kings, was rejected 10 years ago by publishers who thought it off-puttingly long, dense and difficult.
But times change and now there's a bidding war for the 800-page book, which took 25 years to write and a decade to edit down to manageable size and has been described by one admirer as "the War and Peace of the 20th century".
Not much is known about the reclusive Thakara, beyond that he published two cooly-received novels in the 1980s, but all that seems likely to change as Overlook Press in America gets ready for an April launch and British publishers contemplate offering a cool million for a book that's already become a legend before publication.
IS there no end to the phenomenon of Irish comics with literary aspirations? Only two months back I listed Sean Hughes, Ardal O'Hanlon and Tommy Tiernan as three comics who've turned their hands to fiction. And now along comes Pauline McLynn, who's been contracted by Headline in London to write two novels "for a substantial sum".
For the two books Pauline has created what her agent, Lisa Richards, describes as "the irresistible, feisty, female, Irish private eye" Leo Street, and Headline will be publishing the first of them this time next year.
In the meantime, Pauline will be on our screens this year in film versions of Stella Tillyard's Aristocrats and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. And I'll still be chortling at her imperishable Mrs Doyle whenever I play my Father Ted videos.