Sunday 7 September 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Clemency Burton-Hill
Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests


The Writer’s Brush

More marks on paper

Donald Friedman
Mid-List Press, distributed by Random House, 457pp, £25,
Victoria Glendinning
Tuesday, 11th December 2007

Victoria Glendinning

Life is not fair. Talents are not distributed equitably. The likelihood is that if you are good at one thing, you will be good at other things too. But there is a twist in the tail. The more things you are good at, the less you will be perceived as pre-eminent in any of them. The American Paul Horgan, for example — singer, actor, set-designer, painter, poet, writer of stories, essays, novels, plays and libretti — is quoted in The Writer’s Brush as deploring his ‘accursed versatility’, and the truth is that I, unlike my better-informed readers, am unfamiliar with his oeuvre.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4  Next page 

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately

Related articles

Life and Letters

Allan Massie

Breaking the rules

Brave new writing

Richard Bradford

Fifty years ago, Alan Sillitoe’s first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, changed the history of English fiction. Richard Bradford explains how.

The châtelaine and the wanderer

Anne Chisholm

In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Charlotte Mosley

Rekindling life in a dead frame

Caroline Moore

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, by Peter Ackroyd

A far cry from Paradise

Anita Brookner

The Gate of Air: A Ghost Story, by James Buchan

Spectator recommends

Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month

Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus...


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other