Art for art’s sake weakens novel

My Tango With Barbara Strozzi. By Russell Hoban, Bloomsbury, €16.30

Russell Hoban is nothing if not an unusual author. Over the course of his career, the gifted writer of Riddley Walker and Amaryllis Night And Day has specialised in novels that are filled with intriguing happenings, magic realism and musings on the arts, but completely devoid of anything resembling a conventional plotline.

When Hoban’s curious technique works, his novels make for an amazing ...