The Saddest Pleasure
[It] is like a tub of Neapolitan ice cream, three flavours and … [each] reader will find their favourite flavour. The first part is travel writing, the “saddest pleasure” of the title, and Baranay writes about it with intelligence, wit and an eye for rich detail. This style is impressionistic, snapshot, almost pushing into stream of consciousness at times, with intermingled memories, observations and some sharp social satire…. The second part of the book is “stories” … Baranay writes with intelligent insight about interaction, about self and sex … The Third part is ‘A Novella in Three Parts’. … The Saddest Pleasure [is] an alluring read, fragrant with Eastern experience, bitter edged with a relentless contemplated life.
-Australian Bookseller and Publisher, October 1989