Category Archive: Classic Books
The Book Show
Summer 2014, Ultimo TVC loves this show, although the initial set was a shameless rip off of “Hidden”. A great argument for the national broadcaster, although surely the Fry-B-C could muck along for a few millions less? We attended a taping some time back (incognito) and thus got stalker-close to Ms Byrne, Ms Hardy and Mr Steger plus guest. Jennifer Byrne is the perfect host – charming, open-minded, enthusiastic (but no pushover – she does generally not abide shite). Marieke Hardy is P’s favourite, hardiest critic – she and P may share few opinions overall, but when she hates something,…
Continue Reading →The Browning Version
(Terence Rattigan) Rattigan liked to focus on the pitiless pitied; still, he had a great (though now out of fashion) talent for structure, style, character and conventional exposition. It is what makes his plays so enjoyable. Andrew Crocker-Harris is Mr Chipping without the charm, Mr Kotter without the humour and Miss Brodie without the balls. He has been played by Eric Portman, Michael Redgrave, Albert Finney and others but few have got his essential character entirely right (NB the Varnished Culture never saw Portman in the role). After all, the impression he gives is that of only mild surprise at…
Continue Reading →The Masters
(by C. P. Snow) Snow wrote about what he knew: machinations at Oxbridge and Westminster. This one, the 4th in a loose sequence of 9 novels known as Strangers and Brothers, is perhaps the best, a somewhat pompous but intriguing deconstruction of a college election which humanises the Dons and explains the politics.
Continue Reading →The Sheltering Sky
(Paul Bowles) We cannot in this instance agree with the Big V’s view that this book is “an utterly ridiculous performance, devoid of talent.”[1] Bowles did admire Nabokov and his reaction to this verdict upon his most famous book makes for nice speculation. But then, VN was never a fan of the existentialists. Port and Kit Moresby try a Saharan trek to salvage their loveless marriage and end up destroyed by kif, heat, sexual assault, typhoid and catatonia, a fairly accurate reflection (death from typhoid aside) of the real life of Paul and Jane Bowles. Appalling experiences related in commonplace…
Continue Reading →The Caretaker
(by Harold Pinter) Pinter-esque power games, full of menace, pauses, hopelessness and procrastination; we’re all still waiting for the weather to break in order to collect those papers from Sidcup! (Jonathon Pryce played Davies aka Jenkins in Adelaide in March 2012; P ‘liked’, L did not). We both commend the film version with Donald Pleasance, Alan Bates and Robert Shaw.)
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