The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Not content with being the greatest sculptor of his age and one of its most gifted architects, Gian Lorenzo Bernini had some talent as a painter and draftsman. Surviving self-portraits reveal him as the possessor of a positively overstated physique du role. In its most youthful incarnation the face has an air of presumption and
My reading this year has been retrospective, dominated by Stefan Zweig, the most gentlemanly of writers. Beware of Pity, translated by the estimable Anthea Bell, remains powerfully shocking, yet classically restrained, while The Post Office Girl, in a less memorable translation, is queasily convincing. Both are published by Pushkin Press. Zweig seems unfazed by the
A slight change of form this week, here is a news obituary of Graham Greene (apologies for the disturbance early in the film). Greene’s reclusiveness might, I suppose, be key to the art of fiction. Piers Paul Read says that Greene’s privacy was essential if he was to continue observing the world, as writers should.
Rachel Campbell-Johnson’s Mysterious Wisdom: The Life and Work of Samuel Palmer is one of those rare biographies which is a work of literature: beautifully written, overwhelmingly moving. A great art critic, with an understanding of the human heart has produced this masterpiece. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read of anyone:
Hate to get all Peter Mandelson on you, but I’ve decided I’m a fighter not a quitter. When it comes to books, that is. I hate giving up on them. No matter how dense the prose, how teakish the characters, how convoluted the structure, I have to plough on to the bitter endpage. And sometime
Jane Shilling’s The Stranger in the Mirror is an essay on what happens to the narrative arc of a woman’s life when she reaches middle age. It is as deeply felt as it is witty and elegant. Henry’s Demons, by father and son Patrick and Henry Cockburn, provides the most compelling insight into schizophrenia that
Jeffrey Archer is on this week’s Shelf Life. He lets us know what practical gift he’d give a lover for Christmas (apart from his latest bestseller Only Time Will Tell) and what spotting the Labour Manifesto on someone’s shelf might make him do… 1) What are you reading at the moment? Boomerang by Michael Lewis
Ed Balls is a bonny fighter and even his opponents often appear to enjoy being wound-up by the Shadow Chancellor’s pleasingly-shameless* approach to opposition. There was a typical piece of Ballsian chicanery during this afternoon’s debate on the economy when Balls accused George Osborne of stubbornly sticking to a failed “Plan A” and, to buttress
The Occupy camp outside St Paul’s received an eminent visitor last night. The economist Jeffrey Sachs dropped by to meet the London branch of the movement that is ‘changing American debate’. Sachs sees Occupy as an expression of the frustration at inequality and unfairness that is the subject of his latest book, The Price of
The most nourishing book I have read this year is Armand d’Angour’s The Greeks and the New: Novelty in Ancient Greek Imagination and Experience. The author teaches classics at Jesus College, Oxford. He plays the piano beautifully, and also the cello, can talk fluently on art and literature and so is the ideal person to
Gentleman shopkeeper James Daunt has given a cringeworthy interview to the Independent where he calls Amazon ‘a ruthless, money-making devil, the consumer’s enemy’. I wouldn’t be surprised if the manger of “Quills ‘R’ Us” had said something similar about William Caxton in 1476. Poor James Daunt. He clearly had a certain degree of business acumen
The poet Christopher Logue has died aged 85. The obituaries make for fascinating reading. For instance, did you know that the author of War Music also edited Pseuds’ Corner and collated the True Stories column in Private Eye? Or that he was an occasional actor? Aren’t some people almost too blessed? Perhaps, but Logue’s beginnings were difficult. He joined the
Michael Henderson talks to John Wilson, whose obsession with songs from the golden age of musicals led him to form his own band ‘People think I am an expert on musicals,’ says John Wilson, in his pleasing Geordie voice, ‘but that is something I am certainly not. I am obsessed with songs, written by professional
Among exhibition organisers, hyperbole is clearly the order of the day. The crowds are going wild over Leonardo at the National Gallery, expecting an exhibition packed with paintings (though only nine are by the master), and now the Fitzwilliam is hauling them in with a show called Vermeer’s Women that contains just four paintings by
Inexplicably, this series failed to note that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings finally released a new album this year. Better late than never, here they are again this time performing Dark Turn of Mind…
Plays used to end in marriage. Then they anatomised the highs and lows of life as a couple. Now — at least in Neil LaBute’s latest London première — the relationships are all either over or heading that way fast. Reasons to Be Pretty (Almeida, until 14 January) gives a spot-on depiction of those no-man’s-land
To the Manor Reborn (BBC1, Thursday) is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant programmes in the history of television. But then I’m biased for the Rat is in it, and what a splendid, handsome and talented young fellow he has turned out to be. If you looked very carefully about halfway through episode one, you’ll
Keep awake, urges the Gospel messenger in the readings for the beginning of the Christian festival of Advent. That’s not easy in late November when by lunchtime the sun is already fast dropping to the horizon. The propensity to nap, to switch off, can be overwhelming. In Finland it must be so much worse. For
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s and Jérôme Bel’s 3Abschied is the latest addition to a long and historically well-established series of choreographic works set to music by Gustav Mahler. There are still those, however, who cringe at the idea of dancing to the notes of this revered composer — as Keersmaeker points out in her initial
They can’t even be bothered to think of a decent title. Good thing too. The Riots, at the Trike, is a rush job, a gripping and pacey attempt to analyse the disturbances that engulfed Britain last August. Cops, criminals and community leaders have been interviewed by Gillian Slovo, who fashioned their statements into a dramatic
Hugo 3D is Martin Scorsese’s first child-friendly family film and the first thing to say about Martin Scorsese’s first child-friendly family film is that it is a visual wonder: rich, lush, beautiful, gorgeous. But the second thing to say is nothing else is as exciting as the look of it and if there is a
Her mother was Ellen Terry, the most admired actress of the day. Her brother was Edward Gordon Craig, the celebrated stage designer. Little wonder then that Edith Craig was overshadowed for most of her life by two such towering figures. Yet her theatrical achievements were substantial. She was a talented costume designer and maker, the
‘Dear Heywood, I hear Mollie is leaving at the end of next week, in which case so am I. Yours ever, Nancy.’ So wrote my ever-direct aunt, Nancy Mitford, to her employer Heywood Hill, the founder of the famous Mayfair bookshop, on 17 May 1944. Whether or not Nancy’s threat had some effect, she continued
Failure is the very stuff of comedy, but not of showbiz memoirs, so Small Man in a Book (Michael Joseph, £20) is unusual. Rob Brydon’s success came quite late, with Marion and Geoff in 2001, when he was 35, after an ‘era of terrible job after terrible job’, and it makes a happy ending to
Beaming Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, D.Litt. (Oxon), Mark Twain medallist and co-founder of the Hollywood Cricket Club (1881-1975), personified a rare oxymoron: he was a serenely contented writer. Shortly before the Queen awarded him a knighthood and the Queen Mother, a devoted fan, wrote a letter congratulating him, Madame Tussaud’s sent an artist from
Of all the cities in all the world, Paris dominates the American imagination more than any other. Although Americans may admire Rome or London, more have enjoyed a love affair with the French capital since Benjamin Franklin represented the 13 rebellious colonies at the court of Louis XVI. Josephine Baker captured that sentiment with her
Few men are prepared to die for the right of others to say what they strongly disagree with; and most people’s faith in multiparty democracy is at best a lukewarm recognition that the alternative is much worse. Secretly most men would like their ideas (which they naturally believe to be correct) to rule absolutely and
Nigeria is not exactly a tourist destination. A colleague chortles over the memory of trying to wangle his way in — without a journalist’s visa — during Sani Abacha’s military regime. ‘Purpose of visit?’ barked the immigration man. ‘Tourism,’ he lied. ‘No one comes to Nigeria for tourism,’ said the official. He was promptly expelled.
Some readers may wonder if we need this book. Surely, the argument might go, one can summon up potted ‘lives’ on the internet, while serious biographies take book form. And how can even 294 lives of novelists offer, as the cover to this book claims, ‘a comprehensive history of the English novel’? Reason not the