Patrick O'Connor
He Could Laugh at Everything
Buster Keaton: Tempest In A Flat Hat
By Edward McPherson
Faber and Faber 288pp £20 order from our bookshop
IN 1965 BUSTER Keaton made a surprise appearance at the Venice Film Festival, where Film, a short movie he had made with Samuel Beckett, was being screened. The audience gave him a five-minute standing ovation. ‘Sure, it’s great,’ he quipped, ‘but it’s all thirty years too late.’
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
'Too many historians sneer at our forbears; scolding them if they follow the customs of their own day ... tut-tutting if the poor things are detected having a little fun.'
From the archive, Mary Clive on medieval travellers.
http://ow.ly/yk8a50yrjSG
'Reading Taylor’s book has also made me join a book club. I did not like the January book; I did enjoy drinking gin while saying why.'
@clamorousvoice explores the history of women readers.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-readers
'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO