Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere"Hitchens provides rich evidence that his own sallies as a political journalist are nourished by an erudite familiarity with a broad sweep of novelists, essayists and poets. In these pages Oscar Wilde's profound radicalism is uncovered; George Orwell's role as a fulcrum between left and right is carefully appraised; the languid irony and cosmopolitanism of Gore Vidal are celebrated; and a discussion of the fatwah issued against Salman Rushdie prompts a meditation on the West's misunderstood encounter with Islam. Along the way, a refined and knowledgeable palate samples offerings from, amongst others, P. G. Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Christopher Isherwood, Anthony Powell, Saul Bellow, Alan Bloom, Philip Larkin and Patrick O'Brian, and dethrones the overrated, conspicuous among them such figures as Tom Wolfe and Isaiah Berlin."--BOOK JACKET. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 61
Page 20
... less eerily , touches on a tune ' sung in a prison by the lips of Fear ' . Mr Murray has a higher opinion of Bosie's verse than I do , and seems to believe that Douglas might have enjoyed a literary posterity separate from the name of ...
... less eerily , touches on a tune ' sung in a prison by the lips of Fear ' . Mr Murray has a higher opinion of Bosie's verse than I do , and seems to believe that Douglas might have enjoyed a literary posterity separate from the name of ...
Page 28
... less important - and also less new and less concealed ' revelation ' that Orwell , in conversation towards the end of his life , identified to a friend in the Foreign Office the intellectuals and publicists whom he believed to be ...
... less important - and also less new and less concealed ' revelation ' that Orwell , in conversation towards the end of his life , identified to a friend in the Foreign Office the intellectuals and publicists whom he believed to be ...
Page 153
... less strenuous . In the third case Berlin is suddenly willing to grant that there is purity and firmness to be attained , though not by people who are twisted and misshapen partly by environment . The specific location of this in ...
... less strenuous . In the third case Berlin is suddenly willing to grant that there is purity and firmness to be attained , though not by people who are twisted and misshapen partly by environment . The specific location of this in ...
Contents
Oscar Wildes Socialism | 9 |
George Orwell and Raymond Williams | 26 |
Oh Lionel | 44 |
Copyright | |
16 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere Christopher Hitchens No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
actually admiration American Andy Warhol Anthony Powell asked Aubrey Auden become Bellow Berlin British called character Clancy Conan Doyle course culture Dahl described Eliot England English essay Evelyn Waugh fact fascism father fiction Gatsby George Orwell going Gore Vidal homosexual human Ignatieff intellectual Iranian Irish Isaiah Berlin Isherwood Jack Jack Aubrey Jewish Jews John Kipling knew Larkin later letter liberal literary living look Maturin Mencken mind moral never Nordau Norman Podhoretz novel O'Brien once Orwell's Oscar Wilde P. G. Wodehouse perhaps Philip Larkin phrase Podhoretz poem poet poetry political Powell Powell's President published Ravelstein remember Review of Books Roald Dahl Rushdie seems sexual social sort story T. S. Eliot tell things thought Vidal Washington Waugh Widmerpool Wilde Wilde's Williams Wodehouse word writing written wrote York young