Clusters of lives …

… Aubrey the innovator | TLS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Bennett recognizes that Aubrey was adept at preserving the atmosphere in which stories were told and memories transmitted, “but not in cracking these accounts open to draw out the facts”. Unlike Aubrey, she possesses formidable forensic skills, alongside the fine sensitivity to language that she shares with him. In her extensive commentary on the Lives, she is drawn by Aubrey’s hints, half-remembered truths and omissions into a mountain of detective work, tracking down his sources and often his mistakes with infectious enthusiasm.