In managing too carefully the revelation of truth, parents often betray it. Graham Swift’s new novel is narrated by a mother and addressed to ‘you’, her teenage twins, boy and girl. It involves us, as voyeurs, in the revelation of a truth that will come as a bolt from the blue to the children. But
In May 2004 the Royal Shakespeare Company was beginning to emerge from one of the more turbulent periods in its history. It had fled expensively from the Barbican, had an unhappy season at the Roundhouse, and run up a substantial deficit. Its plans to demolish the listed Memorial Theatre in Stratford- upon-Avon and replace it
and from the summerhouse, the viewis, first, that unmarked area of grass,where stood the Air Force quarters of a fewof England’s Few, that rings with silent laughs,our chipping green for practice golf. Beyond —the orchard’s gorgeous blossom, later fruitfor village children and the Anderson,now apple store. Then, topiary in privetand in box; my sculptor’s hands
Recently, Adam Mars Jones accused me in the Observer of being in some ways worse than Hitler, because at least Hitler had an excuse for idolising the German upper classes, namely race science, which I didn’t. I was outraged, and seriously considered suing him. I have since calmed down a little and see now that novels
John Evelyn would find our agonies about food all too familiar. He was impressed with the modern ‘miracles of art’ whereby plants were forced in hot beds and meats and fish were preserved for months or years; but nothing tasted better or was more wholesome than fresh ingredients. He was preoccupied by healthy diets, noting
A summary of the events that take place in this novel might run as follows: a lost boy (who may be the soul of a comatose adult) walks around a hospital with an apple tree growing inconveniently in his stomach. He explores most of the floors, some of which are in a different dimension, and
Degas once complained to Mallarmé that he had been trying to write a sonnet, unsuccessfully, though he had had such a good idea for it. ‘Alas, my poor Edgar,’ was the reply, ‘poems are made with words, not with ideas’. A neat comment, but is it always possible to distinguish between the two? Even a
