Book review – essays
Enemy of the Disaster: Selected Political Writings of Renaud Camus, reviewed
The French writer does not accept that all incomers to his country can be truly ‘French’, and considers the dramatic change of population an unprecedented disaster
David Sedaris, the current king of humorists, is often not funny at all
Since the 17th century, a ‘humourist’ has been a witty person, and especially someone skilled in literary comedy. In 1871,…
The changing face of war and heroism
On War and Writing by Samuel Hynes is hardly about war at all. There is little about combat here, or…
It’s impossible to live up to the expectations of motherhood
In a 1974 interview celebrating the quarter century since the publication of her classic The Second Sex (1949), Simone de…
Every day is mother’s day for writers: most have strong feelings about their mothers, though not always of love
You attempt to write a review with a stiff dose of objectivity, but it’s hard not to start with a…
Brilliant essayists, dark and fair
Read cover to cover, a book of essays gives you the person behind it: their voice, the trend of their…
A Muslim’s insights into Christianity
I’m not a critic, I’m an enthusiast. And when you are an enthusiast you need to try your best to…
A poet in prose
Literary reputation can be a fickle old business. Those garlanded during their lifetimes are often quickly forgotten once dead. Yet…
… trailing strands in all directions
Letters of Intent — letters of the intense. Keen readers of Cynthia Ozick (are there any other kind?) will of…
Ferdinand Mount picks out the plums nicely
Book reviews, John Updike once wrote, ‘perform a clear and desired social service: they excuse us from reading the books…
Cultured — and combative — criticism from America
Four years after his death, it is still faintly surprising to recall that Christopher Hitchens is no longer resident on…
Diana Athill finally accepts ‘Old Woman’ status, aged 98
There’s something reassuring about 98-year-old Diana Athill. She’s stately and well-ordered, like the gardens at Ditchingham Hall in Norfolk, her…
‘Doorways to the unknown’: Clive James’s Latest Readings
In the preface to his great collection of essays The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden claimed: ‘I prefer a critic’s notebooks…
Is Julian Barnes right to think Lucian Freud will survive? Jonathan Meades thinks not
The subject of the least characteristic essay in this engrossing collection of meditations on painters, painters’ lives, painting and reactions…
The theory wars have ended in stalemate
State-of-criticism overviews and assessments almost always strike a bleak note —the critical mind naturally angles towards pessimism — so it…
Lesley Blanch: a true original on the wilder shores of exoticism
Lesley Blanch (1904–2007) will be remembered chiefly for her gloriously extravagant The Wilder Shores of Love, the story of four…
What makes mankind behave so atrociously? Ian Buruma and Joanna Bourke investigate
The first interaction between two men recorded in the Bible involves a murder. In the earliest classic of English literature,…
