While in the plane, returning from Paris, I caught up with some of the
newspapers and magazines I had somewhat neglected... I used to always
carefully select a good book for my trips. I still do it, but most of
the time, between meals, sleeping and going through the recent press, I
don't have time for a book... You never know, however: long delays are
always a possibility, not to mention hijackings...
In the New York Times, on January 17th, Edmund White gave a very positive review of Concerning E. M. Forster (Frank Kermode, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009, 180p):
I then found a short review by Mark Bostridge of a new crime book in last weekend Financial Times. I had read Mark Senderson's previous book, Wrong Rooms, published in 2003, "a moving memoir of his relationship with a young Australian called Drew, and of the loss of his lover from skin cancer," and liked it. His new book, Snow Hill (HarperCollins, 2010, 352p), not yet available in the US, is a thriller, looking worth a look:
Mark Bostridge points to the similarities and differences between Snow Hill and "Jake Arnott’s loose trilogy of 1960s-set novels, which mix gay life and gangsters", which I must admit I didn't know it.
In one of the last issues of the TLS in 2009, John Flower provides a very positive review of Jean-Luc Barré's biography of François Mauriac (Francois Mauriac - Biographie intime, Tome 1, 1885-1940, Fayard, 2009, 645p), the first to disclose his homosexual inclinations. The first volume, the only one published so far, is in fact dominated by this topic.
After reading several articles on the fascinating recent book on American politics, Game Change - Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (John Heileman and Mark Halperin, Harper, 2010, 464p), I was still hesitating to buy it (nothing gay about it). Until I read the first sentence in The Economist review of the book: "Game Change, the account by John Heileman and Mark Halperin of the 2008 American presidential race, is high-quality political porn."
By the way, I also read fairly good article by Margaret Talbot on Gay marriage in The New Yorker: A Risky Proposal, on Perry v. Schwarzenegger which just started in San Francisco.
2010.01.24
In the New York Times, on January 17th, Edmund White gave a very positive review of Concerning E. M. Forster (Frank Kermode, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009, 180p):
Sir
Frank Kermode, who turned 90 last year, has written a subtle and
fascinating book of criticism that obeys the delightful vagaries of
rhythm more than the inflexibility of pattern.
Kermode makes neither too much nor too little of Forster’s homosexuality. He points out that Forster’s affection for an Indian student in England was what initially caused him to travel to India, a trip that eventually led to his finest novel. He also argues persuasively that Forster’s pleasure in writing his homosexual romantic novel, “Maurice,” which was published only posthumously, and in writing his gay short stories, some of which he destroyed as he went along, eclipsed the interest he’d taken in writing about heterosexual characters. If he stopped writing novels altogether for the 46 years between the publication of “A Passage to India” in 1924 and his death in 1970, it was partly because he was very comfortable financially (since his considerable royalties had topped off his inherited income) and partly because he was convinced he was not free to explore in print the only subject that now mattered to him.
Kermode makes neither too much nor too little of Forster’s homosexuality. He points out that Forster’s affection for an Indian student in England was what initially caused him to travel to India, a trip that eventually led to his finest novel. He also argues persuasively that Forster’s pleasure in writing his homosexual romantic novel, “Maurice,” which was published only posthumously, and in writing his gay short stories, some of which he destroyed as he went along, eclipsed the interest he’d taken in writing about heterosexual characters. If he stopped writing novels altogether for the 46 years between the publication of “A Passage to India” in 1924 and his death in 1970, it was partly because he was very comfortable financially (since his considerable royalties had topped off his inherited income) and partly because he was convinced he was not free to explore in print the only subject that now mattered to him.
I then found a short review by Mark Bostridge of a new crime book in last weekend Financial Times. I had read Mark Senderson's previous book, Wrong Rooms, published in 2003, "a moving memoir of his relationship with a young Australian called Drew, and of the loss of his lover from skin cancer," and liked it. His new book, Snow Hill (HarperCollins, 2010, 352p), not yet available in the US, is a thriller, looking worth a look:
Snow Hill
can’t match the poignancy of Sanderson’s earlier work, nor is it trying
to. It has a run-of-the-mill plot, but Sanderson enlivens it with
elegant, unpretentious writing, a strong build-up of suspense and the
portrayal of a central relationship between Johnny, the hot-shot
reporter, and his old school buddy Matt Turner, a policeman from the
City’s Snow Hill police station, which is both emotionally believable
and intriguing.
Mark Bostridge points to the similarities and differences between Snow Hill and "Jake Arnott’s loose trilogy of 1960s-set novels, which mix gay life and gangsters", which I must admit I didn't know it.
In one of the last issues of the TLS in 2009, John Flower provides a very positive review of Jean-Luc Barré's biography of François Mauriac (Francois Mauriac - Biographie intime, Tome 1, 1885-1940, Fayard, 2009, 645p), the first to disclose his homosexual inclinations. The first volume, the only one published so far, is in fact dominated by this topic.
What the second volume of this
“biographie intime” will reveal remains to be seen, but there is no
doubt that the first constitutes a book that no student or specialist
of Mauriac’s life and work can afford to be without.
After reading several articles on the fascinating recent book on American politics, Game Change - Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (John Heileman and Mark Halperin, Harper, 2010, 464p), I was still hesitating to buy it (nothing gay about it). Until I read the first sentence in The Economist review of the book: "Game Change, the account by John Heileman and Mark Halperin of the 2008 American presidential race, is high-quality political porn."
By the way, I also read fairly good article by Margaret Talbot on Gay marriage in The New Yorker: A Risky Proposal, on Perry v. Schwarzenegger which just started in San Francisco.
2010.01.24
