 Both real and imagined characters are blended into this context, where historical personages are typically used to concentrate the historical significance of a novel's plot, Mountstuart's encounters with them are superficial, leaving only an impression of both parties' small-mindedness.John Mullan found the conceit most effective during the New York journal, where Boyd satirises figures in the Abstract Expressionist movement during the 1950s "whose characters seem almost beyond invention.