Tag: English literature
-
Geoff Dyer grows up
Geoff Dyer is one of those authors who never writes the same book twice. He’s produced around twenty of them so far, on a kaleidoscopic range of subjects, including the history of photography, India, Soviet film, the First World War, jazz heroes, Roger Federer and war movies. My favourite is Out of sheer rage: wrestling…
-
Two (or three) naughty boys in Jesus
On a visit to Cambridge last week, the first for over fifteen years, we stayed in one of the guest rooms in Jesus College. We were free to roam the courts, and to eat breakfast with the students in the Hall. On the walls of the Hall were several indifferent portraits of College worthies, presumably…
-
George Bowring: murdered by Welsh magic
The Victorian writer R.D. Blackmore, if he’s remembered at all today, is known for his three-volume novel Lorna Doone. It’s an adventure story, set on Exmoor in the seventeenth century, about the feuding and violent Doone clan and the love between the narrator, John Ridd, and the eponymous Lorna. The book sold badly on its…