Paper people

..As we know, Literature is a friend who does not feed, but only waters. What then is Literary Criticism?
The novelist Wilfred Barclay, experiencing both a "crisis of creativity" and a "midlife crisis", is forced to tolerate a literary "Sancho Panza" - a meticulous professor-"Barkleyist" - near him...
This is how the poisonous satire on the writers' and publishers' mores of the second half of the 20th century begins - "Paper Men" by William Golding, a book that is original, elegant, and, oddly enough, funny.