Mark Bostridge
Lives & Hard Times
‘Why do you do this? Write biography?’, asks the character of Benjamin Britten in Alan Bennett’s new play, The Habit of Art, currently at the National Theatre. ‘Why not make your own way in the world instead of hitching a lift on the life of someone else?’ Later in the play, Bennett has W H Auden express a similar viewpoint. A biographer is ‘invariably second-rank even when he or she is first-rate’.
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
'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
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire