Category Archive: Classic Books
Thomas Carlyle
Carlyle by Millais
(December 4, 1795 – February 5, 1881) “His venerable appearance, his utter independence, his doomladen view of the folly and triviality of the world, his powerful and idiosyncratic command of language, to which a strong Scottish accent lent unfamilar emphasis…were all manifestations of genius to which the Victorian imagination readily responded…”* “Injustice pays itself with frightful compound-interest.”^ “Robespierre was sitting on a chair, with pistol-shot blown through not his head but his under-jaw; the suicidal hand had failed. With prompt zeal, not without trouble, we gather these wrecked Conspirators; fish up even Henriot and Augustin, bleeding and foul; pack them…
Continue Reading →Joseph Conrad
Born 3 December, 1857; died 3 August 1924 Mistah Kurtz might be dead, but Joseph Conrad lives on in his great novels: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Under Western Eyes, The Secret Agent, and, of course, Nostromo. Walter Allen, in The English Novel, thought that a good case could be made out for considering it the greatest novel in English in the 20th Century, a claim made even more remarkable by the fact that English was Conrad’s third language. A great moraliser (a favourite saying of his was that ‘nobody can escape his fate‘), Conrad could be wise and sharp…
Continue Reading →Lucan
AD 39, 3 November: Lucan born. Lucan spoke truth to power. This from the Pharsalia: “These nations, Caesar, if now the fire does not consume them, with the earth it will consume, with the waters of the deep it will consume. One pile in common is left for the world, destined to mingle the stars with its bones.”
Continue Reading →Graham Greene
2 October 1904 “They are ill with me and I can cure them. And you too God – you are ill with me. I can’t go on, month after month, insulting you. I can’t face coming up to the altar at Christmas – your birthday feast – and taking your body and blood for the sake of a lie. I can’t do that. You’ll be better off if you lose me once and for all. I know what I’m doing….” The Heart of the Matter (1948) ——————————————- “He turned his back on her; he wouldn’t promise, but he wouldn’t tell….
Continue Reading →Farewell, Mr Grumpy
Vidia Naipaul (17 August 1932 to 11 August 2018) V.S. Naipaul was a scratchy character (vide Paul Theroux’s “Sir Vidia’s Shadow“). He was wise enough to recognise his prejudices, but simply too lazy to conceal or deny them. And that seems to us, in these days of haute moral posturing, of solid, enduring value, together with his legacy of fine, caustic, off-the-wall, bitter humour, most evident in his masterpiece, A House for Mr. Biswas.
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