Category: Literature

Ego

I mentioned at the beginning of last month diarist and theatre critic, James Agate (Men of Letters). I have the second volume of his diaries, Ego 2, but Lyttleton, Hart-Davis and Leigh Fermor have stopped me reading it.

Dashing for the Post

You may recall that I feel an especial affinity with Patrick O’Brian’s series of novels about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (A Spy in the Family) but nevertheless I have got but never read the last (twentieth) in the series – too sad-making I was told. Fiction doesn’t have to have a sad ending but… Continue reading Dashing for the Post

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The Tartar Steppe

It’s feast or famine at No. 56 and right now it’s feast. A feast of lovely books and I will share them with you as I read them. First I never got round to mentioning that I was given two books after I fell downstairs.

Suez and Brexit; Keep the Aspidistra Flying

As the Suez Crisis unfolded, as with the war we waged in Iraq, it became clear that there had been a pretty big bish. International opinion consigned Britain and France to the dog house; petrol was rationed; the Prime Minister went to recuperate at Goldeneye (Ian Fleming’s house in Jamaica). George Lyttleton expressed his feelings… Continue reading Suez and Brexit; Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Apple Tart is Off

Coastwise Lights, the second volume of Alan Ross’s autobiography has been lent to me by William (Bill) Sansom’s son, Nick. His father features prominently.

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Men of Letters

Yesterday (Letters) Rupert Hart-Davis took his son, Adam, to Eton for his first half (Eton slang for term). I forgot to expand on what became of George Lyttelton’s nephew, Charles, mentioned in the letter.

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Letters

It’s interesting to reflect on how you first came to read an author. Can you remember your first PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, etc?

The Invention of Memory

I was given The Invention of Memory for Christmas three years ago by Alan Higgs. It is by Simon Loftus and traces the story of his family from their arrival in Ireland in 1560 until Mount Loftus burned down in 1934.

In Translation

I am reading, in translation, Joseph Roth’s novella, The Legend of the Holy Drinker, translated and introduced by Wykehamist, Michael Hofmann.