Unsparing

He is not so much a humorist as a satirist of the Thackeray type — unsparing in his denunciation of shams, affectations, and flimsy pretences of all kinds.

Only when one has seen a Control Office at first-hand does one realise the vast amount of unsparing but largely unsung work that is behind the eventual publication, perhaps, of a paragraph in this journal's "Motive Power Miscellany" recording the appearance, within hours of the complete blockage of a main line, of many of its trains, passenger and freight, on routes quite foreign to them; and of effective emergency services either side of the disaster area.

[Giovanni's Room] is clearly written out of interior torment, and is an unsparing account of a man fighting against himself. It is certainly not a pleasant book, and David, the narrator, is not "nice" […] but even in its negative ending, it makes a strong statement in favor of self knowledge and accepting one's sexuality.