Essays
Is the future of democracy in the balance?
Economic insecurity, intolerance and fear, combined with public expectations that the state will fix everything, are seriously endangering western democracy, warns Jonathan Sumption
The beauty and tedium of the works of Adalbert Stifter
The 19th-century Austrian was an astonishingly pure stylist, as W.G. Sebald acknowledges – but it takes real dedication to craft to write such boring novels
Why 4,000 pages of T.S. Eliot’s literary criticism is not enough
Faber’s text-only, strictly chronological four-volume edition of the prose is fatally purist – though admittedly cheaper than the eight-volume Johns Hopkins version
The magic of carefully crafted words
A collection of essays, poems and fiction – ‘offcuts’ of a lifetime spent ‘working with a pen’ – marks Alan Garner’s 90th year
Notes on the natural world: an exquisite collection from Kathleen Jamie
In short essays and poems, the Scottish makar explores our connections with nature, always mindful of the insignificance of human time compared to the deep time of stones
Reading pulp fiction taught me how to write, said S.J. Perelman
The great humourist ascribes his success to the hours he spent deep in the adventures of Tarzan and Fu Manchu – and watching lurid B movies in afternoon cinemas
What became of Thomas Becket’s bones?
Alice Roberts’s examinations of violent deaths in the past take her to the site of Becket’s murder in Canterbury cathedral and the later destruction of his shrine by Henry VIII
Flaubert, snow, poverty, rhythm … the random musings of Anne Carson
It is thrillingly difficult to keep one’s balance in Carson’s topsy-turvy world as she meditates on a wide range of subjects in poetry, pictures and prose
Why Ronald Blythe is so revered
Ronald Blythe, the celebrated author of Akenfield, is to turn 100 next month, and to mark his centenary a beguiling…
Artistic achievements that changed the world
‘Astonish me!’ was the celebrated demand that the impresario Sergei Diaghilev made of Jean Cocteau when he was devising Erik…
The deathly malaise that’s crippling Russia
Now is a difficult time to empathise with Russians – which is why we need Maxim Osipov. We need him…
A translator’s responsibilities are as formidable as a transplant surgeon’s
When asked what it is we do, translators often resort to metaphors. We liken the act of translation to performing…
At last, a book about James Joyce that makes you laugh
I do not think I am alone in confessing that I had read critical works on James Joyce before I…
Michel Houellebecq may be honoured by the French establishment, but he’s no fan of Europe
For many years, Michel Houellebecq was patronised by the French literary establishment as an upstart, what with his background in…
Jan Morris’s last book is a vade mecum to treasure
Jan Morris, in all her incarnations, was always able to evoke a place and a moment like no other. As…
Compassion and a gift for friendship are touchingly evident in Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days
It has to be one of the most extraordinary stories of lockdown — how Tom Hanks’s assistant Sooki Raphael, undergoing…
Don’t ask a historian what history is
E.H. Carr’s 1961 book What is History? has cast a long shadow over the discipline. I recall being assigned to…
Lucy Ellmann is angry about everything, especially men
Is Lucy Ellmann serious? On the one hand, yes, very. The novel she published before this collection of essays was…
The AI future looks positively rosy
In the future, men enjoying illicit private pleasures with their intelligent sexbots might be surprised to find that even women…
As circus gets serious, is all the fun of the fair lost?
What’s so serious about a red nose? How should we analyse the ‘specific socio-historical relations’ and ‘aesthetic trends particular to…
Richard Dawkins delights in his own invective
The late Derek Ratcliffe, arguably Britain’s greatest naturalist since Charles Darwin, once explained how he cultivated a technique for finding…
Salman Rushdie’s self-importance is entirely forgivable
I have the habit, when reading a collection of essays, of not reading them in order. I’m pretty sure I’m…
Despotic laws can — even should — be ignored, says Jonathan Sumption
Jonathan Sumption has developed ‘many strange habits over the years’, he tells us disarmingly, and one of these is to…
Joan Didion’s needle-sharp eye never fails
Most collections of journalism are bad. There are two reasons for this: one is that they are usually incoherent and…
Claire Messud helps us see the familiar with new eyes
The title of this collection of journalism is a problem. Not the Kant’s Little Prussian Head bit, which, though opaque,…
