Allan Massie
Writers and the Golden Age
I wasn’t listening carefully to the discussion on Radio 5 because I was mucking out the stable at the time. So I never learned who the speakers were. But the gist of the argument seemed to be why so much art – all art? – was left-wing. Were there, someone asked, any right-wing writers? A few novelists were tentatively proposed (Iris Murdoch, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell), but the consensus was that art was left-wing because it was, first of all, protest, and secondly (I think) a criticism of society and the way we live now.
Well, yes, up to a point, and so forth. But the matter is surely more complicated. Orwell, a man of the Left, recognised this. Time and again he asked in his essays how it was that so many of the great modernist writers were attracted to right-wing politics, even to
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
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma