Connoisseurs of pretentious fatuousness owe a great deal to the literary critic George Steiner. For over thirty years, this self-declared “polymath” has provided them with one of their choicest specimens of pomposity. Rarely has nature united so much preening self-satisfaction with such prodigies of academic double-talk. Mr. Steiner has even gone so far as to bestow titles like After Babel on his books—a label so perfectly descriptive of everything George Steiner stands for that many experts prefer it even to Errata, the deliciously apt title of his recent autobiography. (Sample passage, about his time as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago: “The compaction, the density of encounter at Chicago was formidable. In my twelve months as an undergraduate… .” Only twelve months, George! Mais oui!) For those whose hobbies include collecting stories about Mr. Steiner’s absurdities, it is a great s ...

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