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There was once a book reviewer named Alexander Baddeley. Though he thought, as reviewers often do, that reviews were meant to be “corrosive” in order to be true, he was too much the lover of words to be cruel or condescending, dismissive or unkind.

To make up for his “failings,” Baddeley sometimes flaunted his own (wilfully acquired) quirks as if they were the marks of deep feeling. For instance, he inevitably ate a single Brussels sprout and vanilla yoghurt for lunch, and he refused to take the subway because he was “afraid of snakes.” (He was afraid of neither snakes nor subways.) None of this helped his reputation, though. Among the very few who cared about book reviews, Baddeley was known for his bland diction and his so-so mind. In a word, he was unsuccessful.

Still, at the heart of the man, there was a longing to be better — to be more acute, deeper, more understanding — and this almost palpable longing made his company desirable to others. It inspired sympathy and a certain amount of pity as well. Among those who pitied him was the book editor of the Globe and Mail, Leo Martinson, a man who, once a month, assigned Baddeley a book to review, thus assuring him of the $300 that were the basis of his income. To earn the money he needed for food — because his rent in Cabbagetown was $300 a month — Baddeley reviewed other books elsewhere and sold his review copies to second-hand book shops as soon as he had done with them. In this way, he made a miniscule living, eating little, and going nowhere that cost money.

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