Search Results

“... something, or missed some signpost. The dust cover of The Seven Ages tells us that in this novel Eva Figes presents the history of mankind. The book contains 186 pages, which seems a bit slim for the history of mankind, even if it is, to quote the cover again, ‘seen from a somewhat different angle’. You will never guess what that angle could be, so ...”

“... John Berger, Christine Brooke-Rose, Brigid Brophy, Anthony Burgess, Alan Burns, Angela Carter, Eva Figes, Giles Gordon, Wilson Harris, Rayner Heppenstall, even hasty, muddled Robert Nye, Ann Quin, Penelope Shuttle, Alan Sillitoe (for his last book only. Raw Material indeed), Stefan Themerson, and (coming) John Wheway (stand by): and if only Heathcote ...”

“... to grasp that this is what was happening. Distance crossed, or at least attempted, is the basis of Eva Figes’s exemplary anthology of women’s wartime correspondence. Her women, whose letters cover a dozen wars, from the prelude to the Wars of the Roses up until the end of the Second World War, are all vivid correspondents, with a wonderful variety of ...”

“... single bed”.’ Irma Kurtz, who chose to become celibate at 48, gets called out, as does Eva Figes, who spoke of women being ‘liberated from foolish longings’: ‘She may be alone, but she is no longer lonely, since her body no longer craves what she cannot have.’ According to Segal, these ‘pronouncements of cheerful sexual abstinence ...”

“... Judy Simons coolly precise on Cecilia, and Sara Maitland decent, if thin on Self-Control. But Eva Figes does not get very far with Belinda, and Sandra Shulman on The Female Quixote is childish and vulgar-an immense letdown from the introduction by Margaret Dalziel for the 1969 Oxford edition. The new version also suppresses Samuel Johnson’s hand in ...”