‘How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?’ This was the title of a celebrated essay by the university don L C Knights, founder, along with F R Leavis, of the austere critical periodical Scrutiny. The question isn’t, as I recall, actually put in the text. It is there in the title as a rebuke to the […]
In this difficult-to-classify book, Ian Sansom – best known for his mystery novels, which I’ve read and enjoyed – rambles through (or beside) one of the great modern poems: ‘September 1, 1939’ by W H Auden. It’s a poem I’ve read many times over the past forty years or so. Like Sansom, I’ve
University dons embarking on a work of criticism seem compelled to produce an academic ID, explaining where they stand in the minefield of critical theory and where they are coming from, as if under interrogation by the thought-police. This is not for our benefit, but to spike the guns of other dons. Valentine Cunningham, who […]
When the editor asked me if I would like to review a book on the fifties, he omitted to mention that its longest – and by far its most amusing – section is an extremely detailed attack on me. I made that discovery rather belatedly when I heard my youngest son tittering as he read […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm