Stanley Kubrick

Friday

Philip Womack

The harrowing true story behind Barry Lyndon

Stanley Kubrick’s swooningly gorgeous film, Barry Lyndon, has just been re-released in cinemas to mark its 50th anniversary. Much ink has been spilled about its hypnotic beauty, its lavish attention to historical detail, its dreamy, luscious, candlelit photography. Yet William Thackeray’s bitingly satirical novel of the same name is often neglected – as is the true, harrowing story that inspired it. The book Barry Lyndon (first published in 1844) bore its genesis from the story of a real adventurer, Andrew Robinson Bowes, whose cruelty to his wife, the Countess of Strathmore, was notorious. Born Andrew Robinson Stoney, he rose to the rank of a lieutenant before marrying an heiress; after

Tuesday

Brian Martin

Frederic Raphael settles old scores with a vengeance

Last Post is a collection of reminiscences, anecdotes and a settling of old scores by Frederic Raphael in the form of imaginary letters to many of the people who have been part of his long life. You might expect a nonagenarian’s critical faculties to have ‘mellowed by the stealing hours of time’, but far from it. Raphael’s intelligence and acerbic wit are undiminished.  George Steiner suffers a sustained attack for being gauche, malicious and too obviously ambitious Those who have crossed his path will be aware of his ability to ‘verbalise easily’ and, as he himself confesses: ‘It is one of my failings that I know how to hurt people.’