The latest addition to my website is Marina Warner‘s The Leto Bundle. This is a superb novel about identity, refugees, immigration, religion, the effect of war and political upheaval, particularly on women, as well, of course, as we would expect from Marina Warner, about myth and its role both in the past and for us … Read more
We spent the past week in the North of England, partially for family reasons but we also made a few literary jaunts. I have always wanted to visit Newstead Abbey so we stopped off there on the way up. Newstead Abbey was never an abbey but a priory. Following the dissolution of the monasteries under … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marina Warner‘s Indigo. This novel is loosely (at times very loosely) based on the plot of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. There are two stories being told, both concerning the fictitious Caribbean country of Enfant-Béate. The first starts just before the British take over the country. We follow Sycorax (a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Judith. This novel was only published in 2012, thirty-two years after Durrell’s death. It was originally written as a screenplay for a film starring Sophia Loren. The eponymous Judith was meant to be the daughter of a prestigious German scientist and Judith, herself a scientist, had … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Marina Warner‘s The Lost Father. Warner is best known as a cultural critic, writing primarily about myth, fairy tales and art. She has recently, for example, criticised Richard Dawkins for dismissing the power of fairy tales. However, she is also a fine novelist. This novel is told by … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Quinx or The Ripper’s Tale, the last book in his his Avignon Quintet. We might have hoped for a great summing-up but what we, in fact, get is a somewhat feeble attempt to tie up loose ends – what happened to Livia and the Templar treasure … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Sebastian or Ruling Passions, the fourth in his Avignon Quintet. This is definitely the weakest (and shortest) one so far and it rather seems as if Durrell is just filling in gaps and cruising. There are two main plot lines. The first concerns Mnemidis, a patient … Read more
I noticed Will Self‘s tired article on the death of the novel a couple of days ago but, having skimmed through it, I felt it really was not worth reading but a tired rehash of the old story, not least the idea that the idea of the novel being dead really meant that people aren’t … Read more
I was sad to see that poet and novelist Rosemary Tonks had died. She was famously reclusive. She wrote five novels, of which I own a couple. Naturally, I have always been meaning to read them but have never got round to it but, now that she is dead, I may push them up the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lawrence Durrell‘s Constance or Solitary Practices, the third book in Durrell’s Quincunx series. This one is set during World War II, with the various characters we have met in Avignon, scattering before the advancing Germans. Aubrey Blanford, the writer, goes off to Egypt as secretary to Prince Hassan, … Read more