D J Taylor
Talking Inheritance
Other People’s Money
By Justin Cartwright
Bloomsbury 259pp £18.99
There was a moment about halfway through Other People’s Money when I began to wonder whether I wasn’t a bit over-familiar with Justin Cartwright’s novels. It came at the point when Artair MacCleod, the deluded Celtic playwright, hard pressed for cash, contemplates the sale of his copy of Richard III, signed by Gielgud, Richardson and Olivier in 1953. Instantly, a spectral bell clanged faintly in my ears: in Look at It this Way (1990), doesn’t Bernie Koppel, the ageing Jewish actor, present Tim Curtiz’s daughter with the identically autographed book? He does, and I got a queer little kick of satisfaction at either spotting Cartwright’s intertextual joke or catching him out in an act of unremembered duplication.
I love Justin Cartwright’s novels. There are ten of them side by side on the study shelf, each one read three or four times over. In an age where most writers make a virtue of shying away from the grand themes of money, power and myth, Cartwright’s highly
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
Twitter Feed
Paul Gauguin kept house with a teenage ‘wife’ in French Polynesia, islands whose culture he is often accused of ransacking for his art.
@StephenSmithWDS asks if Gauguin is still worth looking at.
Stephen Smith - Art of Rebellion
Stephen Smith: Art of Rebellion - Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux
literaryreview.co.uk
‘I have fond memories of discussing Lorca and the state of Andalusian theatre with Antonio Banderas as Lauren Bacall sat on the dressing-room couch.’
@henryhitchings on Simon Russell Beale.
Henry Hitchings - The Play’s the Thing
Henry Hitchings: The Play’s the Thing - A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare & Other Stories by Simon Russell Beale
literaryreview.co.uk
We are saddened to hear of the death of Fredric Jameson.
Here, from 1983, is Terry Eagleton’s review of The Political Unconscious.
Terry Eagleton - Supermarket of the Mind
Terry Eagleton: Supermarket of the Mind - The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act by Fredric Jameson
literaryreview.co.uk