Absolutely outstanding, possibly the best biography I've ever read.
This has a huge amount of erudition: there's limited existing information about DoAbsolutely outstanding, possibly the best biography I've ever read.
This has a huge amount of erudition: there's limited existing information about Donne's life, but tons of cultural and historical context. The analysis of the poems and writing is woven in throughout and really well explained. The author is clearly a huge Donne fan but not obsessively (I had to laugh when the recommended reading section concludes with a warning not to go near a notoriously unreadable polemic of his), and has a clear eye to his obvious and many personality defects while also bringing across what was clearly incredible personal charm.
And it is so *readable*. Here I am sure Rundell's background as a children's novelist kicks in, because the tone is perfectly judged: never dry even while conveying a huge amount of info, constantly engaging, often funny. It feels like having a really interesting person talk to you about something they find really interesting. Even the image choices are terrific. (A guy Donne worked with was known to a friend of his as 'Camel Face'. Some biographers would mark that as totally irrelevant to the matter at hand; Rundell makes sure we get a picture. Wow, the guy looked like a camel.)
That rare thing: a bio that both humanises the subject and makes his whole era feel accessible--not modern, but nevertheless containing people fundamentally like us. and never loses sight of the magic of Donne's writing. A triumph. ...more
Interesting bio of a man who decided to climb Everest on his own despite not having any meaningful mountaineering experience. Spoiler: it was a poor iInteresting bio of a man who decided to climb Everest on his own despite not having any meaningful mountaineering experience. Spoiler: it was a poor idea.
This is intriguing mostly for Wilson's character (coping with war trauma from the WW1 trenches, locked in an affair with a married woman which may have been some sort of menage a trois, possible gender issues, open minded, intermittently ascetic, incredibly strong willed). He was wildly, implausibly full of himself but able to achieve a startling amount because of that including learning to fly and then, more or less on qualifying, taking a small plane to India. He defied the governments of several countries at once to get to Everest. He pretty much set himself to do amazing things and achieved them, until he set himself against the highest mountain on earth.
A weird story, and I was irritated by the author's peculiar choice of second person to put in his own experiences, but lots of great period detail and a fascinating look into an extraordinary psyche. ...more
This is desperately moving. It's a biography of Terry Pratchett, one which makes it clear he was not the friendly grandpa people assumed because of thThis is desperately moving. It's a biography of Terry Pratchett, one which makes it clear he was not the friendly grandpa people assumed because of the hat/humour/twinkly eyes. He was thin skinned, and prone to grumpiness and indeed spectacular rage, and basically was human with human failings. On the showing of this he was also a very decent person, unspoiled by wealth, who conducted his personal life well and wrote terrific books and was passionately interested in a massive variety of things and people.
Writing was mostly what he did. There isn't a huge amount to sustain a biography in the usual way of things. There is, however, the Embuggerance: this brilliant author's horrifically early slide into dementia via a particularly virulent form of Alzheimers that took away his memories, his ability to make connections, his words.
The cruelty of this is apparent here not just in the impact on Terry, but in the writing by his PA/manager of many years. I hope he's had therapy, possibly for PTSD, because these pages read like a traumatised man wrote them. The disease looms over the book, going into frank detail about the impact it had on Terry and on the people around him and his writing, and if you are coping with a loved one and dementia, I'm warning you, it's raw and painful and incredibly moving. I was sobbing bitterly over this: over the loss of the irascible, brilliant man, and the author I loved, and the books he'll never write--Susan as headmistress of a girls school! Moist becomes chief tax collector! Goddammit, goddammit.
If you loved Terry Pratchett you will love this. A great tribute. Can we find a cure for this monstrous disease already please. ...more
This is a really tremendous and comprehensive biography, way beyond what Wheatley as prose stylist or human being deserved. But he was a towering figuThis is a really tremendous and comprehensive biography, way beyond what Wheatley as prose stylist or human being deserved. But he was a towering figure of popular writing, and he pretty much invented a large chunk of the British occult as it is now, plus it's absolutely fascinating. The depth and indeed length allows the author to delve into the wine trade (fascinating), Wheatley's relationship with a criminal who feels like a 1920s book character, his shenanigans in both wars including being part of the deception teams that helped D-Day happen, and of course the business of being a mega-author.
Which he was, for all we now vaguely think 'oh that was the black magic bloke, right?' He sold millions. In the mid 60s, he single-handedly represented 15% of Hutchinson's turnover. Apparently Giles Gordon's first act on starting at Hutchinson was to send a Wheatley MS to a reader without the name, get an inevitably negative review, and go tell the boss that Wheatley's books were terrible schlock (as if he didn't know) and shouldn't be published. (I note he didn't refuse 15% of his salary, or agree to drop 15% of the literary novels he liked that sold 700 copies and could only be published because Wheatley sales propped the firm up.)
Obv, Wheatley's books were indeed terrible, terrible schlock. There's a very funny story of someone commenting that his books had been translated into every European language but one, to which someone else suggested, "English?" And let's not even talk about the attitudes to sex and women and the racism and Wheatley's many other unappealing characteristics (all fully acknowledged here and mostly treated with thought). This is definitely not a hagiography, how could it be, but it's a hugely interesting read, written in a very lively style with some absolutely cracking jokes (the deadpan line re his predictable reaction to the Black Panther movement, "Wheatley was far from keen on bad motherfuckers", made me howl)....more
Part gazetteer, part biography, which is to say a wonderfully entertaining life of Aleister Crowley told through a sequence of London addresses. Very Part gazetteer, part biography, which is to say a wonderfully entertaining life of Aleister Crowley told through a sequence of London addresses. Very evocative of time and place. Some proper laugh-out-loud lines and stories, and a lot of references I've highlighted to follow up. If you're interested in early C20 occult or seedy characters, this is a terrific and engaging read....more
A narrative history of the Byron family for a few generations before the poet, depicting how, frankly, godawful they mostly were. It's a litany of wasA narrative history of the Byron family for a few generations before the poet, depicting how, frankly, godawful they mostly were. It's a litany of wasted time, wasted money, miserable marriages, entitlement, and self indulgence. Foul Weather Jack Byron was about the only one to achieve anything and a chunk of what he achieved included perpetrating a famous atrocity on a civilian town. The rest of them added up to very little. Which does start to feel a bit pointless tbh: once I started wondering why I was reading about these awful no-mark people, it was hard to see past that.
It's got a good period feel and is well set in the time, though I didn't love the rather purple framing passages. Readable, and if I cared about Byron I imagine I'd have been a great deal more engaged....more
Very interesting bio of Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press, who became a journalist, Washington correspondent, TV/radio commentator on a nVery interesting bio of Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press, who became a journalist, Washington correspondent, TV/radio commentator on a national network, and foreign correspondent. She reported on many of the key events of the Civil Rights struggle and was a passionate activist, not a neutral reporter. Current events demonstrate just how damaging it is when the Press pretend to be neutral reporters instead of feeling their first duty is to hold the powerful to account.
Also amazing: she got her first journalism job in her 40s, kicking the arse of the young white men's world.
We get a lot on the history from this, not so much sense of her as a person, although she does seem to have been someone who lived for her work and for the fascination of being in the room where it happened. Extraordinary life. ...more
Massive bio of Crowley which deserves the epithet 'exhaustive/ing' if only for the potted biographies ofWell, that was certainly a book which I read.
Massive bio of Crowley which deserves the epithet 'exhaustive/ing' if only for the potted biographies of literally everyone he ever met, usually including their parents' names, educational history, career etc. This for, eg, someone he had sex with twice. He had sex with a lot of people. This is a large part of what makes this book so unreasonably gigantic. Thank heaven for ereaders, my wrists can't take much more stress (the latter probably something Crowley said a lot).
So. It's an interesting story about a fundamentally horrible human being. Crowley was awarded the newspaper title of The Wickedest Man in the World in large part because of his one-man sexual revolution thing, plus his deliberate efforts to shock people which he then claimed he wasn't doing. (Calls himself 'The Great Beast 666' and then claims in court that the term should be taken to mean 'Little Sunshine'. Oh, sod off you child.) He comes across as, not so much a Great Beast, more a massive tool. Petulant, dishonest, whiny, self-centred to sociopathy. There is a point where you have to look at how many of a man's long-term lovers become alcoholics and think: ooh hey, common denominator.
The author attempts to present Crowley non judgementally. This includes taking a lot of his stuff at face value: the visions and automatic writing of entire books (I wish), the workings, the achievement of mysterious degrees of magical status, the 'sex magick rituals' (mm hmm), the claim that he invented the V for Victory sign in WW2 for Churchill as a mass magical working (no really). We never confront the question of whether Crowley actually believed the stuff he peddled--he may have done, he certainly blew a fortune and a lot of effort on it. Which is a pretty massive lacuna in the book tbh. Author also accepts his wholesale pilfering from a variety of mostly Eastern religions as 'syncretic'. I'm hearing cultural appropriation, but whatevs.
Why read about this ghastly man? Well, a) I'm doing it for work, what's your excuse. b) he was actually someone of real potential and talent. He was an incredibly talented mountain climber, the first to lead an expedition up K2. He was, at points, a *really* good poet. I read his early and eye-wateringly obscene collection White Stains (nice title) and amid the odes to bestiality and necrophilia and Lovecraftian ramblings are some strikingly, stop-in-your-tracks good love poems and a really impressive mastery of form. The man could use words. Also c) it's pretty interesting to see the counterculture at work long before the 60s, and he certainly met a lot of other extremely out-there people (if Gerald Hamilton and Betty May are names that ring a bell).
A comprehensive work on the facts; I doubt the world will need another bio of Aleister Crowley, and I mean that in every possible sense. ...more
Highly detailed account of the lives of identical twin dancer/glamour girls the Dolly Sisters. Totally forgotten now, but they were once megastars on Highly detailed account of the lives of identical twin dancer/glamour girls the Dolly Sisters. Totally forgotten now, but they were once megastars on both sides of the Atlantic. It's a bizarre story, told rather flatly considering how much sex, gambling, high life and extravagance there is going on. We get a lot of lists of once-famous names, not so much on the animating spirits behind the shenanigans. That said, there don't seem to be any surviving letters or diaries or memoir, so this is necessarily quite an external look. Lots of interesting nuggets if you're into the 20s. ...more
Lipton (yes, like the tea) was a major Victorian/Edwardian figure: a self made man from Glasgow who came from respectable poverty and ended up buildinLipton (yes, like the tea) was a major Victorian/Edwardian figure: a self made man from Glasgow who came from respectable poverty and ended up building a multinational retail empire, and hobnobbing with royalty and presidents.
He's potentially a really interesting figure. He became hugely rich and used his wealth to...improve conditions for his workers with more time off and better pay? No, really. He frequently sent vast sums of money and food supplies to striking worker communities. When he donated almost the entire amount required to Princess Alexandra's fundraiser for £30K to feed the poor, he refused to put up with any "deserving poor" nonsense and insisted that if people were hungry, they should be fed and judgement didn't come into it. Her also supported the nascent Labour Party, and Irish independence, and a lot of pretty revolutionary movements, all the while being a plutocrat.
It would be really interesting to get a sense of the person behind that. Plus he was gay, and managed to live with his long term partner (and his parents in the same house) (also his partner was called William Love, I mean, come on) for literally decades, and to keep his private life out of the papers while being spectacularly famous to the point of affecting government policies across the US and UK.
Unfortunately, this book gives basically no sense of Lipton as a man. It's full of facts about where his great grandfather lived and the many many ways in which he obfuscated, forgot, or lied about his early life, and incredibly minute details about racing, profits, ham prices etc. But in terms of understanding him as a person, no: it's all the surface stuff, except for one brief and excruciating passage where the author imagines Lipton checking out William Love's tight buns, so actually it's a relief there wasn't more of that.
Anyway. Factual and only factual. Possibly the information just doesn't exist to be used, but I'd love to read a novel about Lipton that gets into his head. A modern Arnold Bennett could make hay with this. ...more
Nichols was an interesting man, very talented and clever but never quite achieving as high as he hoped. He was also very gay, and this bio gives at leNichols was an interesting man, very talented and clever but never quite achieving as high as he hoped. He was also very gay, and this bio gives at least some sense of the weird situation in the pre-war period and 20s of quite a thriving gay subculture in his arty privileged circle, along with the external hostility, incomprehension, or obliviousness. It's a weird story because he was a compulsive self-biographer who just...lied, a lot, massively, and it's also rather sad to see his bitter awareness of his failure to live up to early promise. I mean, he had stage shows produced, a dozen bestselling books, long-running columns, he was famous. Like Noel Coward, he had a talent to amuse, and most people would count that as a successful life, but he wanted to be great.
I would have liked more on Cyril Butcher, his lover and companion of 50 years (in a no-heteronormative way) who is rather a shadowy presence here, and indeed on Reginald Gaskin, his lifetime valet/cook/factotum (also gay, which is one of the ways Nichols got to live with his partner and never had trouble with the law). ...more
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