Unacknowledged legislation : writers in the public sphere
"Many have seen the encounter between literature and politics as necessarily fraught. Norman Podhoretz, for instance, examined the intersection under the rubric 'The Bloody Crossroads' (a term he borrowed from Lionel Trilling). Christopher Hitchens, in this sparkling engagement with literature and its producers, prefers a different approach. Taking inspiration from Shelley's description of the poet as an 'unacknowledged legislator', he shows that whilst the engagement between writers and those in power is not always smooth, it generally embodies a dialectic that is worth investigation." "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."--Jacket
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xx, 358 pages ; 25 cm
9781859847862, 1859847862
45714737
I. 'In praise of ...'
The Wilde side
Oscar Wilde's socialism
Lord trouble
George Orwell and Raymond Williams
Oh, Lionel!
Age of ideology
The real thing
The cosmopolitan man
After-time
Ireland
Stuck in neutral
A regular bill
Not dead yet
II. 'In spite of themselves...'
Old man Kipling
Critic of the booboisie
Goodbye to Berlin
The grimmest tales
The importance of being Andy
How unpleasant to meet Mr Eliot
Powell's way
Something about the poems
The egg-head's egger-on
Bloom's way
III. 'Themes...'
Hooked on ebonics
In defence of plagiarism
Ode to the West Wing
IV. 'For their own sake...'
O'Brian's great voyage
The case of Arthur Conan Doyle
The road to West Egg
Rebel in evening clothes
The long littleness of life
V. 'Enemies list...'
Running on empty
Unmaking Friends
Something for the boys
The cruiser
Includes index