The links above will guide you to specific books and topics, but for a smorgasbord of news and recent posts, take a look below.
Shanghai Book Review interview by QIU Xiaolong
This article appeared in Chinese in the Shanghai Book Review on 25 September, but I didn't see it until I woke up on the 26th, my birthday as well as T. S. Eliot's. It's wonderful to have it in Chinese, of course, because I've already heard from colleagues in China who saw it, but for those who don't read Chinese and would prefer something other than the Google Translate version, here's our original English exchange, which Qiu Xialong then translated. The Chinese version includes photographs I provided. QIU Xiaolong: It's such a pleasure to talk to you again, Karen. [We [...]
Valerie Eliot and the making of CATS
When I started working for Valerie Eliot in 1986, the musical Cats was only a few years into its record-breaking run in London, but it had already made Valerie a wealthy woman. She was rather defensive about this success. She loved having the money, no doubt; she was good with money and would allude to decisions about her stock portfolio with that confidence that people have when they are talking about something they understand and enjoy. But she didn't want to appear crass or merely commercial, perhaps a lingering anxiety about coming from "trade," as T. S. Eliot's friends said. [...]
Trollope: Toast & Marital Troubles
I am reading Orley Farm, one of Anthony Trollope's less well-known novels. One of his topics is male infidelity, or at least the pursuit of what he calls "strange goddesses." He explains the situation from the point of view of each of the characters, which is interesting in itself: a middle-aged Victorian writer imagining the experience of a long-suffering wife. What I really appreciate is the way he conveys some of this in homely examples. Here's one: In the course of the evening the footman in livery brought in tea, handing it round on a big silver salver, which also [...]
Mary Beard’s Women & Power
I’ve just read a tiny hardcover book called Women & Power: A Manifesto by the celebrity classics scholar Mary Beard. It consists of two edited speeches with black-and-white illustrations (I’ve pulled the color versions of a couple of them for this post) and sells at US$15.95. I had high expectations. “A Manifesto” sounds quite definitive, doesn’t it? But in the end Beard simply says we don’t really have a model for women and power. While I am not ready to introduce my own manifesto, I want to point out two significant problems with Beard’s argument. Admittedly, she is a classics [...]
Remembering Rosemary Goad of Faber & Faber
Rosemary Goad, the first woman to become a director of Faber & Faber, died in October (obituary here, paywalled). I originally planned to go to the memorial service on 17 December with one of her long-time friends, a former Faber secretary, but I had to cancel my flight because of the developing Omicron situation. Fortunately, the church streams its services and I was able to watch and listen. In his eulogy to Rosemary, the author and former Faber director Robert McCrum referred to Rosemary's talking about the days when she was working in the secretarial pool with Valerie Fletcher, whose [...]
Male potency in biography, autobiography, & other writing
A few novels I've read of late* are full of details about male sexuality, which led me to ask why there is so little sexual detail in biographies. Even when it comes to extramarital affairs, there is rarely anything about the frustrations or needs or entitlements that led to relationships that were often life-changing for all involved. I knew of one biography, Carl Rollyson, who writes about such issues, and I had a fresh appreciation for Lewis Mumford's candor about his difficulties with premature ejaculation as a young husband and with getting an erection in early stages of his extramarital [...]