Clutching at Railings

Jonathan Coe: Late Flann O’Brien, 24 October 2013

Plays and Teleplays 
by Flann O’Brien, edited by Daniel Keith Jernigan.
Dalkey, 434 pp., £9.50, September 2013, 978 1 56478 890 0
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The Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien 
edited by Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper.
Dalkey, 158 pp., £9.50, August 2013, 978 1 56478 889 4
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“... one do with a suggestion? One throws it out. For what does one throw a suggestion out? For what it may be worth. In one of his last columns, published in March 1966, O’Brien looked back on his catechism, compiled more than twenty years earlier, and described it as ‘an exegetic survey of the English language in its extremity of logo-daedalate ...”

Diary

Long Ling: What really happened in Yancheng?, 23 January 2020

“... Take the path to reach common richnessD. Vigorously develop social productivityMany candidates may be tempted to choose A. After all, ‘strengthen the CCP’s leadership’ is the correct answer to most questions. Some candidates may choose C, because Deng Xiaoping said ‘to be a socialist doesn’t mean you have to be ...”

Antigone on Your Knee

Terry Eagleton, 6 February 2020

A Cultural History of Tragedy: Vols I-VI 
edited by Rebecca Bushnell.
Bloomsbury Academic, 1302 pp., £395, November 2019, 978 1 4742 8814 9
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“... mustn’t come about as the result of an accident, but must involve fate or providence, which may in turn require the presence of numinous powers. W.B. Yeats could see nothing tragic about a car crash. Pure contingency – falling drunkenly from a fifth-floor window, for example – lacks the grandeur of the tragic. The protagonist must be of high social ...”

As Long as the King’s Arm?

James Vincent: Jiggers, Rods and Barleycorns, 5 March 2020

The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness 
by Emanuele Lugli.
Chicago, 312 pp., £27, May 2019, 978 0 226 61249 2
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“... of the kilogram, it couldn’t lose weight: the universe could only get heavier.) As of last May, the definition of a kilogram is based on Planck’s constant. Metrologists say that by excising the last physical vestige of the SI, they’ve fulfilled the dream of the savants and finally created an immaterial, universal basis for all metrology. But they ...”

It’s still not right

Adam Thirlwell: ‘Empty Words’, 19 March 2020

Empty Words 
by Mario Levrero, translated by Annie McDermott.
And Other Stories, 152 pp., £8.99, May 2019, 978 1 911508 50 2
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“... level. The idea, then, is that by changing the behaviour observed in a person’s handwriting, it may be possible to change other things about that person.This is the first of a series of ‘exercises’, small practice compositions – self-referential and encouraging, like this: ‘Now I’m trying to do three things: (1) keep the letters to a suitable ...”

At Tate Modern

Jeremy Harding: Giacometti, 17 August 2017

“... to praise in Giacometti’s work; his evocation of a generic ‘man’, straitened and distended, may even have given Ponge the idea that he could start again, learning from Giacometti how to whittle this enormous subject down to within a millimetre of its armature. Yet in his notes for the essay, published in the 1960s, we see Ponge circling round the work ...”

Diary

Rupert Beale: Edit Your Own Genes, 22 February 2018

“... Whenever there is a breakthrough in genetic engineering, there are inevitably fears that it may be used irresponsibly in human reproduction. The nature of the arguments hasn’t been changed by CRISPR, but it’s more urgent that we address them. Doudna has thought about the issues, but it isn’t clear that she goes beyond paying lip service to some of ...”

Bond in Torment

John Lanchester: James Bond, 5 September 2002

From Russia with Love, Dr No and Goldfinger 
by Ian Fleming.
Penguin, 640 pp., £10.99, April 2002, 0 14 118680 1
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“... Ian’s father, went to Eton and Oxford, became a Tory MP, and died a hero on the battlefield in May 1917. Val had two sons, the elder of whom, Peter, b. 1907, inherited the tendency to be a paragon, and the younger of whom, Ian, b. 1908, inevitably became the family handful. Things were not helped by the wills of Val and Robert, which absent-mindedly or ...”

We are all Scots here

Linda Colley: Scotland and Empire, 12 December 2002

The Scottish Empire 
by Michael Fry.
Tuckwell/Birlinn, 580 pp., £16.99, November 2002, 9781841582597
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“... trade unionism. Scotland’s extraordinarily narrow and corrupt electoral system prior to 1832 may have encouraged some Scottish proconsuls like Thomas Maitland, Governor of Malta and the Ionian Islands, to take a particularly dim and manipulative view of colonial assemblies. Scotland’s churches produced distinctive forms of missionary activity, while ...”

Snooked Duck Tail

Lucy Daniel: Jeannette Winterson, 3 June 2004

Lighthousekeeping 
by Jeanette Winterson.
Fourth Estate, 232 pp., £15, May 2004, 0 00 718151 5
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“... other texts to interpret it. But the effort of interpretation creates a weight of expectation that may prove intolerable, and stuffing such big claims as ‘Ulyssean’ into such a thin book – as the dust jacket does – might make it burst. In the Babel Dark sections, Winterson allows herself to tell, in part, an old-fashioned love story (while Silver’s ...”

Diary

Patrick Cockburn: Civil War in Baghdad, 20 October 2005

“... Humvees carry placards in Arabic and English warning drivers to stay 100 metres away or they may open fire. They don’t explain how anybody can keep their distance in the crowded traffic of central Baghdad. Iraqis spend their days watching for hidden dangers. As I came in from the airport on the main highway I had my eye on a car near me that was about ...”

Me and My Breakfast Cereal

Frank Close: Co-operative Atoms, 9 February 2006

A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down 
by Robert Laughlin.
Basic Books, 254 pp., £15.50, September 2005, 9780465038282
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“... molecules into a lattice ensures the crystal’s solidity and also its beauty: carbon atoms may organise themselves into diamond, or into soot. In a solid, the individual atoms are locked in place relative to one another, but a rise in temperature causes them to jiggle a bit so that each is slightly displaced. The positional ‘errors’ do not ...”

Titbits

Alan Brien, 15 May 1980

Breasts 
by Daphna Ayalah and Isaac Weinstock.
Hutchinson, 286 pp., £7.95, March 1980, 0 09 140870 9
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“... breasts sticking out to here. Fascinating as these speculations are, at least to me, they may appear to stray beyond the limits of a review of this book. (I also regard oral sex, made fashionably respectable in the Sixties by Updike and Roth, as a compromise with unadmitted homosexual drives – remember Mordecai Richler’s hero, dreaming on his bed ...”

Gertrude

Graham Hough, 18 September 1980

Nuns and Soldiers 
by Iris Murdoch.
Chatto, 505 pp., £6.50, September 1980, 0 7011 2519 5
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Collin 
by Stefan Heym.
Hodder, 315 pp., £7.95, August 1980, 0 340 25721 0
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An Inch of Fortune 
by Simon Raven.
Blond and Briggs, 176 pp., £5.95, June 1980, 0 85634 108 8
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Virgin Kisses 
by Gloria Nagy.
Penguin, 221 pp., £1.25, July 1980, 0 14 005506 1
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“... an inadequate destination for a novel on this scale. A novel from East Germany, whatever else it may be, is necessarily read as a report: and for the great majority of Westerners, a report on a virtually unknown world. Judged by internal evidence, Stefan Heym’s Collin makes a strong impression of authenticity. It has been hailed in West Germany as the best ...”

A Human Kafka

Gabriel Josipovici, 5 March 1981

The World of Franz Kafka 
edited by J.P. Stern.
Weidenfeld, 263 pp., £9.95, January 1981, 0 297 77845 5
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“... This would seem to be justification enough for Stern’s general remarks. But the actual letter may not quite bear out his interpretation. Kafka writes: He [the rabbi] inspects everything, but especially the buildings; the most obscure trivialities interest him. He asks questions, points out all sorts of things. His whole demeanour is marked by admiration ...”