A critic on the move

The tyranny of Western art has provided Brian Sewell with a great deal of bread and butter over the years but, as he freely admits, he has always proved adept at biting the hand that feeds him. "This is a selfindulgent narrative," he begins. "It reveals obsessions and prejudices that surprise even me."

Readers familiar with Sewell's roving intellect, the withering putdowns, his mannered aestheticism and his utter pomposity, engaging or maddening depending on how you look at it, will probably not be surprised at all. This collection of writings, based on a decade of visits to the ancient sites of Turkey, is full to bursting point with the elegant erudition, sweeping generalisations ("Nothing new in Turkey is worth tuppence"), sexual asides (breasts, nipples, penises both tumescent and flaccid, anal penetration) and offended harrumphing (Ephesus is a "sanitised ruin with as much mystery as Oxford Street and the Champs-Elysees") that one would expect to find.

In other words, it is an excellent read. Dense, certainly, but sufficiently crackling to pull the reader through the more challenging chunks of learning. There is a great deal more thought and expertise on display here than in most travelogues of today, which too often rely on a whirlwind visit through foreign parts seasoned with a smattering of ersatz history. Sewell's love of Turkey, by contrast, has deep foundations.

Although this may not be quite his genre - he sketches amusing portraits of his companions and paints attractive landscapes but essentially remains the art critic on the move - Sewell has several of the travel writer's traits, not least the tendency to regard mass tourism as an unspeakable evil, to dwell on uncomfortable hotel rooms with substandard plumbing, and berate his less than accommodating guide.

More pleasingly, he romanticises Turkey with the protectiveness of a lover, castigating Lawrence of Arabia for whipping up anti-Turk feeling "with the fervour of a flagellant". Turkey, in Sewell's view, is more a part of Europa Major, than the Asia Minor of the Romans. Does this mean the country is closer to us than we might think? That is not clear. Turkey is secular, yet muslim, Asian yet almost European, neither one thing nor the other, a confusion which explains part of its charm but resolves none of the pressing political questions such as its aspirations for membership of the European Union and its less than wholesome human rights record.

Justin Marozzi is the author of South from Barbary.