Category Archive: WRITING & LITERATURE
Franny and Zooey
(by J.D. Salinger) (1961) This perfect little novella (actually, a short story published in The New Yorker in 1955 and followed by another a couple of years later, then combined as a diptych) is a personal favourite. One would not wish to go on a houseboat holiday with any member of the Glass family (maybe Les) but their mood storms are always worth getting caught in. Frances Glass, the baby of the family, has discovered a little book called The Way of a Pilgrim (in real life purchased from Brentano’s by Salinger’s bride-to-be and reputed Gestapo staffer, Claire) which she…
Continue Reading →Eichmann in Jerusalem
(by Hannah Arendt) The Varnished Culture finished this work none the wiser but better informed. Valuable as all eye-witness accounts are, it is nonetheless a moot point as to whether the ultimate Nazi bureaucrat is worth study at all. A trickier topic is the Stockholm-style compliance by some Jewish leaders, and touching on that exposes the author to a charge of excessive severity.
Continue Reading →Doctor Faustus
(by Thomas Mann) Formidably long and deep, Mann’s novel was written from 1943 to 1947 and represents his “F.U” to Germany for feting Hitler and forgetting Mann. Still, Mann was right and this work is his masterpiece, one of the most authentic studies of genius. Roger Scruton called it “Mann’s great valediction to Western culture.”
Continue Reading →A Distant Episode
(by Paul Bowles) Like the cove in George Orwell’s piece about bookshops, we generally ‘do not desire little stories’, yet this is P’s personal favourite, along with Joyce Carol Oates’ Where are You Going, Where have You Been?. Warning: Both stories are particularly nasty.
Continue Reading →Defend the Realm
Kim Philby
(by Christopher Andrew) (Other editions entitled The Defence of the Realm) The author is suited to the task of telling MI5’s story and not just because he’s a Cambridge man. Impeccably credentialed and given an exclusive entreé to classified material, Mr Andrew provides a rational, impartial and exquisitely detailed work, easy to read and to read compulsively.
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