Divine wonderlands
Since at least the early twentieth century, the question of identity, the vital reality or stark falsehood of such a concept, has been at the core of the most serious literary writing. From existential anxiety and historical misappropriation, to the dispossession or conscious denial of individuality, writing now seems to be at an even more...
Memory’s martyr and keeper
Patrick Modiano has often said that he is writing constantly, persistently, invariably but with almost infinite variations, the same book. And at the centre of each of his novels, almost like a reverberating echo or clinging shadow, is the story of himself in search “for mystery where there was none”, for the “transparency” (of memory,...
From the heart
The title of Maylis de Kerangal’s second novel in English comes from Platonov, an unfinished and seldom performed play by Chekhov. One of his earliest works, ‘Little Plato’ is a distillation of every human gesture and movement, the ideas and existential questions that were to define Chekhov’s later work in its entirety. Above all, the...
Centuries of wisdom and blood
France and the world were stunned by shock and horror at the beginning and end of 2015 when terrorist fundamentalists spread fear and murder across Paris. Hunting down the culprits, locating their networks and above all untangling and striving to understand their motives and ultimate purpose has become a daily agenda, with ramifications far beyond...
Three Christmas hampers
Still pondering gifts for the smaller people in your life as the winter holidays loom? Here’s a selection of non-perishable treats for Discerning Young, Not Very Young and Definitely Older readers, featuring books that have been published, reissued or rediscovered in 2015, as well as one or two earlier favourites. Hamper #1 – A Box of...
A small wonder
They say that good things come in small packages, and W11 Opera’s current production of Eliza and the Swans, a sparkling retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans, is certainly a glorious thing on the small stage of the POSK Theatre in Hammersmith, which for two nights transforms into the great world of fairy...
Not for the ordinary reader
Émile Zola thoroughly enjoyed being the bête noire of French letters and the gadfly of the literary imagination, constantly challenging what writing, novel writing in particular, was all about. He was unflinching in his project of redefining literature as an enterprise of scientific scrutiny into society’s innards and gutters. He became the leading figure of...
Not a girl, alas
Our times are times of tremendous change, maturation and unique creative vibrancy for the theatre. Productions have multidimensionality, a plurality of voices and of centres of balance which enthrals us, inspires us, truly lures us to share in the dramatic experience, be more and more an integral, engaged part of a stage that is no...
Shakespeare’s exiles
A tempestuous and disproportionate furore erupted in the media after Benedict Cumberbatch used stronger terms than usually expected to entreat the audience at a recent production of Hamlet at the Barbican to show support for the refugees arriving on Europe’s shores. The actor’s reaction, after being presented with a CBE by the Queen for his...
Erasures
Ann Goldstein, the English translator of Elena Ferrante, said in a panel discussion hosted by Rosie Goldsmith at Waterstones Piccadilly this month that she felt “bereft when the last translation was finished.” “The characters,” she felt, “become people we live with.” The same sense of bereavement, of loss of a vital friend or voice, is...
A fruitful distillation of old and new
Patrick Marber’s Three Days in the Country at the National Theatre. “A ripe-soft pear” was Gustave Flaubert’s term of affection for his good friend Ivan Turgenev. Taken out of context, the term is hardly a compliment. Une poire molle is someone who lacks character, conviction, mettle; yet Flaubert must have meant something very different. According...
The eye of the Gorgon
The middle of August, and by extension the end of summer, is the time of the Perseids – magnificent, prolific meteor showers, majestic shooting stars inspiring us with awe at this glimpse of eternity and immensity, but also forcing us to shudder at the prospect of chaos and human mortality. They herald divine illumination and...
