On a Chinese Mountain
Frank Kermode, 20 November 1986
“... a civilisation that can be established without the creative energies born of sexual repression. George Bickersteth, Empson’s colonial administrator, is an intelligent human and sexually quite ordinary; he gives up a native mistress and brings out a wife from a rectory. She is quite attracted to Wuzzoo, whom she teaches English, and he has to explain what ... ”