Category Archive: Classic Books
Mephisto
(Klaus Mann) Haughty toad sucks up to artsy-nazis to progress in the theatre; his Faustian bargain gets him more than expected. It’s not hard to see why the estate of Gustaf Gründgens, the actor whose role as Mephistopheles bewitched that drama-lover Goering, sought to have the book banned by a German constitutional Court (in the old days they would simply have lobbed it on the bonfire).
Continue Reading →Major Barbara
(George Bernard Shaw) A scream: armaments manufacturer Andrew Undershaft wants a successor; his bible-walloping daughter concludes it is better to take money from the devil for good use than leave it with him. Very rude about the Salvation Army and worth re-consideration in these times of ‘clean charity’ (not to mention boycott, divestment and sanctions).
Continue Reading →The Life of Johnson
(James Boswell) Incomparable biography (or stalker’s notes) of the great Tory grump Dr Samuel Johnson, packed with wit and wisdom. My favourite vignette: Johnson speaks of one of Boswell’s Scottish acquaintances who affects a savage, Rousseau-like disdain for civilised order: “if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”
Continue Reading →The Long Goodbye
(Raymond Chandler) I shaved and made some coffee and then parked on the settee to start reading this thing and then I got up and went back to the bathroom and stripped off my tie and shirt and sloshed cold water in my face with both hands and then went on reading and then fixed some more coffee and cooled it down with a slug of scotch and then I went out on the back porch and smoked a cigarette and that’s more or less where I got to.
Continue Reading →The Minoans
Image courtesy of Eric Gaba
( by J. Lesley Fitton) For over 40 years Sir Arthur Evans had a patent on “Minoan” civilisation on Crete and tended to make it up as he went, albeit subconsciously. This rather sober book puts the pots and pans and ‘restored’ frescoes in a slightly less romantic context.
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