O dear, I am not sure I want to watch the new (3-episode - how can you do it in 3 episodes of an hour each, in 1974 it was 13 hour long episodes) TV adaptation of South Riding.

I will concede that I am profoundly prejudiced against Andrew Davies's 'new' version for reasons enumerated here in Mark Bostridge's excellent and respectful article about ( Read more... )

Annoying article on my beloved Dame Rebecca in today's Guardian Review by Stefan Collini. Apart from making me want to beat him about the head with a cppy (hardback, if possible) of How to Suppress Women's Writing - especially given that he explicitly invokes the unladylike characteristics of 'Performing, grabbing attention, making a splash: these ( Read more... )

I'd wish George Gissing* a happy 150th birthday, but can't really feel that he was into the concept of happy birthdays.
*Stil have a pile of his novels in the really-must-re-read-sometime pile.

From jonquil:

Interests:

George Gissing
A fascinating late C19th novelist: I think I was originally inclined towards him by the write-up by Walter Allen in The English Novel (which for quite some while was my guide to works beyond the obvious canonical writers). Okay, the urban Mr Gloomypuss to match Hardy's rural one, with much more class bitterness. But ( Read more... )

James Fenton, Was Shakespeare, or was his father, a Catholic, or a crypto-Catholic?:
Were they connected to Jesuit missionaries operating undercover in Warwickshire? These questions are asked in an article in the TLS of March 16. The answer to the latter question appears to be a resounding raspberry, which is interesting, since the authors of the ( Read more... )