Lewis's The Monk William Beckford's Vathek and Fonthill Abbey and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and

Lewis's The Monk; William Beckford's Vathek and Fonthill Abbey; and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and Strawberry Hill. The extravagant, gossipy, effeminate Walpole gave every appearance of being a "Finger-twirler" (the 18th century's "decent word for Sodomite"), but his great 20th century champion and editor, Wilmarth Lewis, insisted that Walpole was entirely sexless. It won the Booker and 32,000 hardbacks were sold.What we think of it now: In 1993, it was voted the best of the Bookers.Responsible for: Forcing British readers to contemplate the insularity of British fiction.. It is an interesting fact that a number of the principal monuments of the 18th-century Gothic revival were the products of what might be called a homosexual sensibility: M.G.

There are moments when the novel is becalmed in adjectival doldrums.What they thought of it then: In India, the book was treated with scepticism The "history" appeared wilfully distorted. The ruling Gandhi family were very cross indeed and Rajiv was one of the first to ban Satanic Verses.In the UK the book made Rushdie's name. Major Shiva, also imprisoned, is shot arbitrarily.Theme: India seethes with chaos: no moral norms appear to operate and the individual is offered the alternatives of resignation or violence.Style: The prose is rich and spicy: one moment poetically symbolic it can slide into farce or tragedy.Chief strengths: One of the few recent novels in English to tackle an enormous theme head on, and emerge triumphant.Chief weaknesses: Rushdie's love of words teeters into self-indulgence. Their son, Shiva, is swapped for Saleem at birth.; he is brought up in poverty, while Saleem is doted upon.Independence, Partition, politics and internecine war are played out between contemplative Saleem and pro-active Shiva Saleem's family loses money Shiva becomes a savage military officer Shiva impregnates Parvati the witch. Saleem marries her as she gives birth to a child "born to a father who was not a father."Finally, Saleem is made a political prisoner and is forced to have a vasectomy. Saleem is born on the stroke of midnight, 15th August 1947: the exact moment of Indian independence. His life is a fairy-tale He is raised by rich Muslims who are not his parents. His central exhibit is "Where Do They Come From? Where Do They Go ?" Nearly 18ft high, two optical boxes hang in the air Between them a human form is suspended.

"Time vacillating through eternity like a spinning coin," is Bowie's view.. Plot: The Arabian Nights meets Tristram Shandy to produce a fantasia on recent Indian history. At the Barbican meanwhile, John Tusa, the managing director, and Graham Sheffield, artistic director, are planning what to do with the main theatre when the RSC vacates it for six months of the year. Links and with the Vienna Festival are on the cards, but the theatre could be opened on Sundays for more matinees. David Bowie's next appearance is not with a rock band but at the international visual arts gathering of the Florence Biennale next week. He does acknowledge that this would mean missing the ravishing concerts of the LSO. But it strikes me - though he does not mention it - that it would also mean missing the excellent Royal Shakespeare Company, not least Adrian Noble's magical production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Mr Hare is an associate director of the National Theatre, and it is, I suspect, unprecedented for such a senior figure at one theatre to advocate a boycott of another arts centre.