An odd kind of novel
I can’t help thinking that, if any other country had in its recent literary history a writer as distinctive and original as T.F.Powys, they would make more of him. They … Continue reading
A Reader’s Diary, 28 January 2015
I finally got round to reading a book that has been sitting on my shelves waiting to be read for just under forty-nine years. I bought my second-hand, War Economy … Continue reading
The Deserted Village (or ‘The Rage of Gain’)
Oliver Goldsmith is remembered for a novel, a play and a poem. It was in the spirit of the age for writers to be proficient in all three. Conversation, as … Continue reading
Late poems
I remember when High Windows was published in 1974 the excitement I felt in anticipation of reading Philip Larkin’s first collection of new poems in a decade. I remember also … Continue reading
Always afternoon
It is clear from the very first lines of Tennyson’s poem, The Lotos-Eaters, that the interest of this brief episode from Homer’s Odyssey lay for him not in Greek myth … Continue reading
Singing in chains
‘In spite of the danger of becoming the centre of a cult, Mr. Thomas has developed in his own way, exploring with vigour and originality his elemental, almost racial, emotions … Continue reading