The Canon

The Canon is one of the most controversial aspects of literary criticism. I think that goes without saying. Most of us were first introduced to it at school when we are given a reading list or we learned in English (or French or German or Italian…) class that there were certain standard books that were … Read more

More on the Man Booker/Literary Prize

When I set up this blog, I vowed that I would only touch peripherally on the literary prize bandwagon/farce and here I am writing my fourth post and my fourth on literary prizes. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. There have been two burning (?) issues … Read more

Man Booker

I was surprised to find in my morning Guardian an interview with Stella Rimington not on spying but on the Booker Prize and in the main section of the paper, not the Review section. Apparently she cannot tolerate personal abuse. Who can? Tony Blair? However, she must be aware that she is in a highly … Read more

The Nobel Prize – the winner

Well, at least neither Bob Dylan nor Philip Roth got it. It is definitely the turn of a poet to get it but I suspect that Tomas Tranströmer will not turn out to be a big seller. I must confess that I read very little poetry and almost none in translation so I doubt that … Read more

The Nobel Prize

As this is my first post on this blog, my aim was to talk a bit about my new website The Modern Novel but that will have to wait till another day as tomorrow is Nobel Prize for Literature day. I generally avoid literary prizes as I think that their decisions are often wrong but … Read more