Louis Barfe
From Here to Modernity
Ernö Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect
By Nigel Warburton
Routledge 197pp £30 order from our bookshop
THE ARCHITECT ERNO Goldfinger was a man of many paradoxes. He was the son of a-wealthy lawyer and the grandson of a vice-president of a bank, yet he was a lifelong Marxist. Despite his politics, in later life he craved a knighthood. He bullied his staff and paid them less than the-going rate, yet he was also capable of immense generositv and kindness towards them. He was a perfectionist, and yet he delegated most of the detailed work on his buildings to those same underpaid assistants. He was a rampant egomaniac, yet he has no gravestone. Not to put to fine a point on it, he was an interesting sort.
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
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
'We have all twenty-nine of her Barsetshire novels, and whenever a certain longing reaches critical mass we read all twenty-nine again, straight through.'
Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad