David Annand
The Ecstatic Truth
In her seminal essay ‘Against Interpretation’, Susan Sontag famously argued that ‘in place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art’. It was a mistake, she claimed, to attempt to reduce a work to a single, stable reading, as we have with, say, Animal Farm, the characters of which are generally taken to represent the major players in the early Soviet Union. Such a framing prevents people from experiencing a piece of art for themselves, leading them too narrowly towards the intellectual ‘content’ of the work and away from its sensuousness, its magic.
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'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'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