Now we’ve all had our fill of bunting, bladders and BBC-bashing, it’s time to turn our minds to more high-minded pursuits, starting with a long overdue glance at the weekend’s book pages.
And you can’t get higher minded than a Nobel Laureate. 74-year-old Peruvian novelist, and ex-presidential candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa has a new book out. Called The Dream of the Celt, it’s about Sir Roger Casement, the Irish-born diplomat who was executed for treason in 1916.
When the Telegraph’s Nicholas Shakespeare asked Llosa to explain his motive for writing, he replied: ‘In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It’s something that gives me what real life can’t give me – all the adventures, all the pleasures, all the suffering.’
Thoughts of suffering, and revenge, must have been forefront of his mind if he happened to read Roy Foster’s Times review of The Dream of the Celt.
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