Bryan Appleyard
At last we learn what Foucault was All About
Postwar French thought tends to agitate the English. The grandeur of its rhetoric, the ambition of its claims, the apparent imprecision of its terms and the frequent opacity of its analysis all conspire to alienate a people whose fondest native traditions are empiricism, clarity and wry self–deprecation. And what exactly are they thinking about anyway? Marx is an enduring, unhealthy obsession as was, in the Sixties, taking to the streets with gangs of murderous Maoist students. Things have not improved – look at Jacques Derrida. What’s all that about?
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'The identification of a mighty force sparkling intermittently seems to me to constitute the finest and most consistent poetic achievement of Goudie’s book.'
Candia McWilliam on @lachlangoudie's 'The Story of Scottish Art'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-that-glisters
Though 'the hotel had a reputation as the area’s best, its staff were not used to looking after world leaders, so the arrival of Cuba’s new strongman, Fidel Castro, came as something of a shock.'
@dcsandbrook on @simonhallwriter's 'Ten Days in Harlem'.
http://ow.ly/I63850Bvs10
'After all, who knows what anybody is really like, or what they really think? The biographer – same as a painter of portraits – cannot help but reproduce himself to some degree.'
From the archive: Beryl Bainbridge talks to Sebastian Shakespeare.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/sebastian-shakespeare-talks-to-beryl-bainbridge