A ghost question: Is Beauty Good by Rosalind Belben

This is the first paragraph of a review cut from the TLS in 1989. I was in my fourth year of reading novels and looking everywhere for ideas for what to read next, often keeping reviews that excited my interest. What set Gabriel Josipovici's reviews apart was the inclusion of the novel under review within the wider landscape of the form. Until then I had been reading the novels from the second camp unaware they could be any different. I enjoyed them for sure, but then I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being and from the very beginning felt something different, a rush of recognition, like vertigo. This wasn't due to the prologue discussing Nietzsche's idea of eternal return and Parmenides' division of the world into pairs of opposites, though that played a significant part, but to the single paragraph opening the novel 'proper'. I have been thinking about Tomas for many years. But only in the light of these reflections did I see him clearly. I saw him standing at the window of his…