Very much of the gossipy, name-droppy, petty-point-score-y (quite literally -- Xu Yuanchong seems to have a photographic memory for that time he got two marks more than More Lauded Poet X and More Distinguished Professor Y in minor test Z sixty years ago), self-aggrandising school of literary biography; the sheer throttlability of Xu evident on nearly every page marred otherwise interesting tidbits about translation and early C20th Chinese literary culture. I read the 'correspondence' (creepy stalker warning) with Qian Zhongshu between fingers, cringing all the way.