Review: What a Carve Up! & Atonement
With Handbagged on the West End, Charles Moore’s biography shortlisted for the Orwell prize and an upcoming collection of short stories by Hilary Mantel, depictions of Margaret Thatcher and her […]
Category Archives: Literature
450 Years of Shakespeare
Last year, two computer scientists devised an algorithm to establish the most important people in the whole of human history. In fourth place, behind Jesus, Napolean and Muhammad, was William Shakespeare. […]
The Age of Reinvention
I remember one of my professors telling us in a University lecture that it’s impossible to ever identify the prevailing literary movement of one’s own era. Her matter-of-factness posed a […]
Review: The Bell Jar & Nervous Conditions
Among the various milestones of twentieth-century literature is the emergence of a more autonomous female narrative form. The Victorian Bildungsroman (or ‘coming of age’ novel) centred predominantly around the lives […]
Donna Tartt: Reviving the Old-Fashioned Artist
Whoever said ‘Only an idiot would try to get rich by writing a book’ touched on a kind of reality. We’ve all seen how the greatest of artists can lurk […]
Review: On Chesil Beach & The Casual Vacancy
If one concurs with Leonardo da Vinci that ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’, then Ian McEwan’s novella On Chesil Beach (2007) is a treat. It was an absolute steal in […]
Doris Lessing and the Artist’s Enduring Legacy
My first venture into Doris Lessing came only in April this year. The Grass is Singing, which had lingered in a bedroom floor pile since Christmas, seemed like an ideal […]
Review: Great Expectations & The Unconsoled
Browsing the Dickens shelf of Waterstones after my graduation in June, a certain question inevitably posed itself. Just how did such an enthusiast of Victorian literature get through an English […]
The Culturist 