Fly and the Fly-Bottle

‘It is immensely well done. Mr. Mehta has a real gift of exposition and an unusual one. He can give a creditable and a credible account, not only of ideas but of the people who begot them, with illuminating reason why they did so. Each of the philosophers and historians with whom he talked appears as a self-consistent and self-explanatory personality, both intellectually and psychologically . . . Obliged, in spite of his English education, to see this from the outside, Mr. Mehta may have had peculiar and inherent advantages. He has written a very lively and also a very intelligent book which mixes lightness and seriousness in the best proportion. He is perhaps a bit jocose—indeed, in the self-depreciation and understatement of his humour, more British than the British.’ —Observer (London)