He is a marvellous reader of the way Shakespeare gives different idiolects to different characters and dares to introduce low comedy into tragic situations, even at the risk of disrupting the "high" effect.
If that has a slightly homey sententiousness, her own storytelling avoids it, for Solnit is a resourceful spinner of yarns and forger of symbols, a powerful reporter, a marvellous reader of other writers' works, quick and deft with aphorisms.
It's rare for an archaeologist to write like a novelist, but when he can, as Mithen can, it gives the lay reader a marvellous opportunity to go back in time, far surpassing the 'dramatic reconstructions' which mar so many television documentaries.
To me the English version reads perfectly, truly attaining that marvellous balance where, as readers, we are well aware of being privy to a textual world otherwise not available to the Anglophone reader: Diver steers well clear of over-domesticization, and yet at the same time, her translation never contains the infelicity of a clumsy rendering.
Some readers of this marvellous biography by John Campbell will come away with mixed feelings about Jenkins junior, but few will fail to admire his father; the coal worker who took full advantage of the educational opportunities offered by his union for "self-improvement".
One reader spotted what a marvellous blunderer Bateman is.
Like Patrick, his first picture-book invention, who transforms the world with his magic violin, or Mrs Armitage aboard her trusty bicycle, or the marvellous Mister Magnolia, Blake is a close reader of the moment.
"Just as his presence filled a room, his marvellous poems filled the hearts of generations of readers".
EVERY year about now China's official press trumpets the country's progress on human rights, and readers write in, accusing western countries of "turning a blind eye to China's marvellous accomplishments".
After the introduction of unlimited data-transmission packages for cell phones, in 2003, the number of novel writers and readers increased dramatically, an efflorescence as spontaneous as a grow-your-own-crystal set but no less marvellous.
Marvellous, marvellous, absolutely splendid.
