Leo Robson
Brodsky Before Brodsky
A Room and a Half
By Andrey Khrzhanovskiy (Director)
130 mins; starring Grigoriy Dityatkovskiy, Artem Smola, Evgeniy Ogandzhanyan, Alisa Freindlikh, Sergei Yursky
Joseph Brodsky was generous in his praise of those poets he saw as predecessors – most notably, Donne, Pushkin and Auden (‘the greatest mind of the twentieth century’). And in the fourteen years since his death, aged fifty-five, he has received grateful tribute in his turn. A varied group of poets, including Derek Walcott, Adam Zagajewski and Paul Muldoon, have commemorated Brodsky in verse. There have been memoirs by the academics Ludmila Shtern and Daniel Weissbort; another, by James L Rice, is on its way. As is the real prize: Jane Ann Miller's translation of the biography by Brodsky's close friend and industrious admirer, the late Lev Loseff.
In the meantime, we shall have to make do with Andrey Khrzhanovskiy's film, a scattergun formal experiment that hits more often than it misses. At times, the film is almost unwatchable in its diffuseness and whimsy. But when it hits, the result is droll, mournful and graceful, a
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
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk