I am currently in Italy, which is one reason why the reminiscences of undergraduate life in the seventies have been on hold. I’ll get back to that topic when I’m back in the UK, starting with a post on Ken Severs, about whom I wrote last year. I had a fascinating conversation with his son,… Continue reading Home thoughts from abroad
It’s March already, and I haven’t posted since the end of last year. In the meantime, I’ve published a couple of reviews on Shiny New Books which I’ll link to here. The first was Cynthia Zarin’s little book of, well, essays I suppose one might call them, on aspects of Italy and Italian life. These… Continue reading Marching on
When I started my degree, we weren’t bombarded with information in the way that freshers are now. Our only source of information was the noticeboard in the English department, which in those days was situated in one of the brutalist concrete buildings that had been built when the university expanded in the sixties. We were… Continue reading Eng Lit Life, 1973
Last night I had the good fortune to meet Billy Collins after he had performed at Edge Hill’s Poets Laureate event with Carol Ann Duffy.As my students know, American Literature is a bit of a blind spot with me, but I have been a fan of Collins since first hearing him read on Garrison Keillor’s… Continue reading Billy Collins
You would think I might get these all right. No, I got 6 / 7. I even got the question on To Kill a Bleeding Mockingbird right. What I got wrong is the question on The Charge of the Light Brigade, where I was invited to declare why Tennyson had used certain verbs. All the… Continue reading Volleying and thundering
This novel was sent to me by Penguin, so that I could add a review to their Blog a Holiday Read site, where, apparently, it will appear sometime. You, discerning reader, can read about it now though. Many things are coming to an end at the faux-bohemian College Sunrise: not just the education of a… Continue reading Muriel Spark, The Finishing School
Sean O’Brien is one of my favourite poets. His work has always shown its rootedness in tradition, even when questioning that tradition – see Cousin Coat, for instance. Here, in an excellent article, he makes a case for the restoration of the canon in education, before something very precious is lost. He’s right.
…is probably a good title for an article I shall write about my experience addressing the old boys of Malay College on the subject of their old teacher John Anthony Burgess Wilson. I hadn’t anticipated the scale of the event, though I had a suspicion when we arrived early and saw the banners.Here’s one: Sharon… Continue reading Mr Wilson’s Old Boys
Will Self is never a cosy read, and The Book of Dave is no exception. Its central conceit is that, in a Britain where the waters rose calamitously centuries ago, the primitive people who inhabit what’s left of England have founded a religion based on the sacred texts of Dave, a depressed cab driver. The… Continue reading The Book of Dave
To the Royal Exchange on Friday, for the award of the first Edge Hill Short Story prize organised by my friend and colleague Ailsa Cox, and presented by AL Kennedy. It was a very pleasant evening – wine was consumed, canapés eaten, shoulders rubbed with the famous. The prize was awarded to Mothers and Sons… Continue reading Edge Hill Prize