Wake Me When It Starts

In her aptly-titled new book, Duchess of Nothing, Heather McGowan proves that, dazzling ironists such as Flaubert aside, banality can withstand literary treatment without undergoing much change. What ensues is a dreadfully boring book, a book about nothing that never attempts to create the sort of aesthetic atmosphere in which this vacuous subject matter might be rendered at least beautiful, if still devoid of meaning.