“... goes: but it is left to the reader to try to fit the pieces together into an intelligible whole. Ray Monk’s biography of Wittgenstein succeeded in bringing an enigmatic character to life, but Moorehead’s book leaves the real Russell just out of reach – a mere compilation of deeds and words. She seems not to be able to enter into Russell’s ...”

“... lyrics, or ‘songs’, and Gothic fragments, as well as one wholesale plagiarism from Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis. The presence of the plagiarised poem, probably added to fill out the volume, makes Shelley’s yearning to establish himself as an author clear. A similar desperation is evident in the various adolescent displays of ‘genius’ that he ...”

“... this direction), but I don’t know how far I succeeded, except for an admiration for Thelonious Monk and an immediate passion for the supremely talented and intelligent Dizzy Gillespie, the most dazzling trumpeter in the world, who lacked no gift except the willingness to reveal his soul, as Parker had done. My admiration for Miles Davis was based on his ...”

“... prisoners is led out to be shot by Napoleon’s soldiers. They include Buñuel himself, as a monk; Serge Silberman, Buñuel’s producer; and the writer José Bergamín, an old friend of Buñuel’s. They also include the uncannily familiar figure of my old acquaintance the doctor, Buñuel’s pal José-Luis Barros. It took me a while to place the ...”

“... in the inhuman landscape: from a distance like lichen and, on closer inspection, like blight. Monk and Coltrane at Carnegie Hall, Nat King Cole (the After Midnight Sessions with Sweets Edison, Stuff Smith and Juan Tizol), Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys, Ray Charles. And towards the end of the day, with the ...”

“... writer, seeking religious experience in a Spanish monastery, is disturbed by a pragmatic Spanish monk asking for help in obtaining the important American book, How to Procure for Friends and Vanquishing Everybody. Mr Pivner, a true believer in Dale Carnegie, has a son called Otto who shows off in Greenwich Village about his experiences in Central ...”

“... as multifariously as dreams?’ Certain texts and people – Chekhov’s story ‘The Black Monk’, the futuristic philosopher Nikolai Fyodorov – bob up enigmatically throughout the book, as do thematically freighted, semi-surreal passages: ‘And still life goes on in Chekhov’s garden, where it’s always a fine day for hanging yourself, and ...”

“... his arrival in New York, he was signed by Nesuhi Ertegün of Atlantic Records, who had produced Ray Charles and other R&B legends. Coleman knew that his ideas had a precedent in jazz tradition: as he noted in his liner notes to Change of the Century, free group improvisation had ‘played a big role in New Orleans’s early bands’.The initial response to ...”

“... witnesses speak of joy, delirium and intoxication. It was, one clerical observer recalled, as if a ray of divine love had suddenly descended. There were extraordinary scenes in the Piazza del Quirinale – the square in front of the papal palace. News got round the city that the pope had come out onto his balcony to bless a band of young men bearing ...”

“... Allauddin Khan, perform at the All-Bengal Music Conference (Tagore and the 13-year-old Satyajit Ray were also in the audience). On the first day, Khan led an orchestra of local orphans playing a mixture of Indian and Western instruments; on the second, he gave a recital on a string instrument called a sarod. The following year, Khan joined Uday’s troupe ...”

“... Like Godard, Raworth is fond of quoting from Samuel Fuller (Pick Up on South Street) and Nicholas Ray – and to hell with the subtext. The film-influenced books, westerns watched to survive the low-pressure weather systems of Colchester, shadow Godard’s career curve; until the lushness is burned out of both of them and the audience has to sit up and take ...”

“... the Tour de France to the Nouvelle Vague. Trads followed Acker Bilk, Mods worshipped Thelonious Monk: even at fifty years’ remove, you can see how sharing the same club, city or country might have been problematic. If the Oxbridgey Trads had a philosophical pin-up it was Bertrand Russell, with Freddie Ayer for real deep kicks; Mods backed the darker horse ...”

“... and diaries and subsequently in the biographies of Eliot’s London friends and associates. From Ray Monk’s Life of Bertrand Russell, or Hermione Lee’s of Virginia Woolf, or Miranda Seymour’s of Ottoline Morrell, there comes an abundance and, in its repetitiveness, an overabundance of testimony about Vivienne’s or Tom’s nervous as well as ...”

“... of the room that person is in right now. Overwhelming.’ There is Shane Drinion, the asexual tax monk who might actually be happy, who sits across the table from the ultra-fox Meredith Rand and levitates listening to her talk about her time on a psychiatric ward and her prettiness. And there are multiple David Wallaces. One David Wallace, wet behind the ...”