D J Taylor
They Finished Their Drinks and Left
The Soldier's Return
By Melvyn Bragg
Sceptre 346pp £16.99
Back in the early 1980s, in the depths of an Oxford winter, I remember trudging through the snow to attend something called the New College Fiction Symposium – a kind of brains trust featuring assorted luminaries of the form (notably Salman Rushdie and Michael Frayn) and chaired by Melvyn Bragg. These, younger readers may perhaps need reminding, were exciting times for the English novel. Midnight’s Children had just scooped the Booker. There was a feeling in the air that a certain kind of book (the Drabble and Amis K kind) was on the way out, and was being replaced by the Rushdie, Barnes and Amis M kind, and at the same time a suspicion that this transfer of power might be rather a good thing.
Something of this tension was reflected in the panel discussion. When the meeting was thrown open to the floor, I can recall standing up and asking what now seems a slightly mean-spirited question. It was directed at Melvyn Bragg and its gist was: ‘Don’t you think that the old-fashioned, staidly
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
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm