European scholars can only guess.
Novelist David Gates talks about his overeducated, self-tormenting characters, the genius of Dickens and the seductive pursuit of perfect taste. However, there are some honorable, and even brilliant, excursions. The car salesman. The longeurs and the accountancy deceits are beautifully wrought. Rabbit's shafting by a Toyota rep, Mr. Shimada, defines a time in the 1980s of American industrial nervousness.