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. |
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Page 5
... young bachelor in a fashion- able London apartment , playing the piano . He imagines himself alone , and does not ... young man , and went on to give us aunts and butlers and futile young men without ever mentioning Wilde even in passing ...
... young bachelor in a fashion- able London apartment , playing the piano . He imagines himself alone , and does not ... young man , and went on to give us aunts and butlers and futile young men without ever mentioning Wilde even in passing ...
Page 44
... young reader - for - pleasure setting out on life's road ) . He cited authors as various as Leon Feuchtwanger and Rudyard Kipling , and didn't bluff about a book he hadn't read . And we know that he was excessively fond of the theatre ...
... young reader - for - pleasure setting out on life's road ) . He cited authors as various as Leon Feuchtwanger and Rudyard Kipling , and didn't bluff about a book he hadn't read . And we know that he was excessively fond of the theatre ...
Page 51
... Young Communist League . ) Whittaker Chambers won in some ways and lost in others , all the while convinced that he had exchanged the winning side for the losing one . Alger Hiss lost in some ways and won in others , almost certainly ...
... Young Communist League . ) Whittaker Chambers won in some ways and lost in others , all the while convinced that he had exchanged the winning side for the losing one . Alger Hiss lost in some ways and won in others , almost certainly ...
Contents
Oscar Wildes Socialism | 9 |
George Orwell and Raymond Williams | 26 |
Oh Lionel | 44 |
Copyright | |
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Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere Christopher Hitchens No preview available - 2014 |
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