From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sunday Times BOOKS
Date: 23 Nov 92 18:46:43 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

At the risk of initiating a weekly feature, here is a quick run-down of 
the contents of this week's BOOKS.

Harvey Porlock's survey of UK critics divides between more insults hurled
at Nigel Lawson's _The View from No. 11_ and polite lamentation about the
banality of Graham Greene's dream world, as revealed in _A World of My Own_.
Its contents are perhaps best summed up by Anthony Clare in the Sunday 
Express, who observes plainly that it was "profoundly disappointing" to 
find that "Greene's unconscious life does indeed look like his conscious life".

Recently liberated Terry Waite reviews _The Faber Book of Church and Clergy_
ed. A.N. Wilson.  The anthology will prove disappointing to those Anglican
females reinvigorated by the Synod's decision to allow women to don the 
episcopal gown, as it provides insufficient space to everything non-Victorian.

Revisionist feminist historian Judith Walkowitz has produced a study of 
"Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London", which glorifies
the plucky and feisty "street-fighting girls" who could defend themselves
against male aggresssors.  John Carey is politely critical of Ms. Walkowitz's
zeal to see Jack the Ripper as a tool of misogynic oppression, and her
attack on Josephine Butler's study of street prostitutes that labels child
prostitutes "helpless and innocent".

Julia Neuberger awards a "Bravissima!" to Helena Kennedy's criticism of the
sexism inherent in British Justice in _Eve was Framed_ and the insipid 
biography of Janis Joplin _Love, Janis_ penned by her prim sister Laura 
receives a sound thrashing from the hands of resident rock critic Robert
Sandall.

The life and times of living alcoholic legend and radio personality, Jeffrey
Bernard, are examined in _Just the One_ by Graham Lord.  We learn that now
legless Bernard resented being labelled "a bewildered little boy lost"
who took "two Valium with a mug of Ovaltine and whisky before burying"
his face in his pillow and sobbing himself to sleep.  Jeff confesses to
always dreaming of being John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.

Roy Hattersley, whose inability to distinguish "aggregate demand" from
the other kind in recent comments about Maynard Keynes's General Theory
of Employment, Interest and Money, nevertheless produces a sharp analysis
of a new Henry James biography "The Imagination of Genius" by Fred Kaplan.
James' cosmopolitan good manners lasted until his deathbed, when he politely
implored his servants to dim the lights when presented with his newly won
Order of Merit insignia.

_The Methuan Dictionary of Cliches_ by Christine Ammer sounds like an odd
celebration of exhausted aphorism, and records such masterpieces of hackneyed 
phraseology as "a finger in every pie" dating back to Shagger Pagger,
"ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies" used by Shaw, and Milton's
inexcusable "adding fuel to the flame".  Putative Fido-relative Frank
Muir offers a definition of cliches (or clitches, according to Eric
Sykes): "A short expression that by being brilliantly illuminating or
perhaps just fun to say is so useful that it becomes over-used".

Peter Kemp heaps praise on William Kennedy's latest, _Very Old Bones_
("extravagantly impressive") and an aspiring authoress sublets to assorted
deadbeats and would-be writers in _Zeph_ by A.L. Barker.  Jonathan Coe's
conclusion is that it "is not the sort of novel that haunts the mind for
days afterwards (let alone changes your life)".

Elizabeth Buchan lists several new boddice rippers and romances, and the
fourth installment to Anne Rice's vampire epic _The Tale of the Body
Thief_ finds the Vampire Lestat pronouncing that humans are "weak, flopping,
sloshy, repulsive collections of nerves and ganglia".  Colin Greenland finds
illustrious Clive Barker's illustrated juvenile horror story _The Thief of
Always_ ultimately "sketchy and mechanical" despite a "clever, consice" 
concept:  the Holiday House, where every day contains all four seasons.

Oggsford scholar Richard Dawkins reviews Lewis Wolpert's critique of
the non-common-sensicalness of science in _The Unnatural Nature of Science_
and horrors at the new sociologists who nevertheless balk at boarding 
"a magic carpet or a reindeer-powered aerial sledge" in favour of the 
technocratic Western airplane.

Benjamin Woolley's "brilliant, almost Swiftean journey" into the fascinating
realm of hyperreality and cyberspace and philosophical theories thereof in
in _Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality_ appropriately 
ridicules prophets of postmodernity Jameson, Foucault and Baudrillard.

And aging G.B. Shaws's correspondance with dimpled and dangerous post-war
housewife Margaret Wheeler edited by Rebecca Swift offers new insights
into G.B.S.'s admiration of Soviet Russia and approval of ethnic cleansing.
Margaret "although self-absorbed and opportunistic" charmed and enticed
Shaw, her "pin-up boy", to candid self-examination.  As Penny Perrick
observes "You can never be too obvious where men are concerned".

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy