Robert Gordon
Hell of a Poem
Literary criticism has all but lost the meagre niche it once occupied in the general books market: attention to literature has been crushed by the juggernaut of biography. But the appetite can return on occasion, prompted by some imaginative repackaging of great works that manages to rekindle a dormant fascination. Fifteen or more years ago, Alain de Botton pulled it off in How Proust Can Change Your Life; more recently it has been Montaigne’s turn, thanks to Sarah Bakewell’s fêted How to Live, ostensibly a biography but more like an illuminating guide to the Essays. It is nigh impossible to predict where the next flash of interest might occur. We can guess at some of the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions: recent editions or new translations of the original works, perhaps
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'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