English Literature
How I used to love and now hate the London Review of Books
Speaking words of wisdom, LRB
The ascent of Barbara Pym
A chronicler of the overlooked, she has at last got her just literary deserts
Must we mourn a decline in English degrees?
It does not entail the decline of English literature
Canterbury Tales redux
Pilgrimage still serves to bring people together
Harold Pinter: from bad to verse
The playwright will not be remembered for his poetry
Why do we like Larkin so much?
On a love with limits
Virginia Woolf: Teflon goddess of the trivial
She was nasty, crude, racist and often a poor writer — so why is she revered?
Why we need a new movement
The timid world of BritLit needs to be shaken up by a mutinous new clique of writers
Keep calm and le Carré on
His pessimism about Britain proved untrue — and its own kind of comforting fantasy
A spy for all seasons
Who is the man behind “The IPCRESS File”?
Tom Stoppard’s Hampstead drama
Best not try to memorise this deceptive Connect Four of relationships — just get into the flow
November Letters
Aiming for the rescue and rebuilding of liberal capitalism
Life amid the ruins
Any captured, destroyed city, offers the same problems for the new owners
Folly, fantasy and Britain’s defence crisis
Britain has spent scarce resources in support of the fantasy of “Global Britain”
Blue-collar brilliance
1970s Pittsburgh wasn’t just a steel town: it was the steel town
Megalomania
Megalopolis is a gaudy, self-indulgent mess
Religion is here to stay
A new spirit of confidence and fearlessness characterises those who continue to believe
Boris the Innocent
The Johnsonian lexicon has yet to incorporate the word “responsibility”
Patostreamers and the decline of public life
A depressing new trend reflects the impoverished state of social existence
How Britain has imported Bangladeshi politics
A failure to take immigration and integration seriously means that Britain has to deal with other nation’s problems
Don’t appeal to our worst instincts
How many will talk themselves into asking for a parent’s early death if money is involved?
