Friday, April 30, 2010

My hero / Samuel Beckett by Nick Clegg


Samuel Beckett


Nick Clegg: My hero Samuel Beckett

Nick Clegg
Friday 30 April 2010

I
've always read a lot, mainly fiction. These days, with three young sons, often the most I can manage is a quick chapter here, a few pages there; but there are still very few nights when I'll get to sleep without dipping in to whatever book I have on the go.

So I am grateful to those writers who have made it easy to go back to them, night after night, year after year. They are the greats, and Samuel Beckett is one of them. My first encounter with Beckett was when I was studying in Minnesota and I acted in a student production of Krapp's Last Tape. Back then I remember images of Beckett making as great an impression on me as his work. He always looked so impressive – that beak-like nose, eyes staring dead into the camera – and he had an austerity to him, even when he was young, that makes it very easy to connect the man to the words.
Since then I must have read Waiting for Godot – of course – a hundred times. Every time I go back to Beckett he seems more subversive, not less; his works make me feel more uncomfortable than they did before. The unsettling idea, most explicit in Godot, that life is habit – that it is all just a series of motions devoid of meaning – never gets any easier.
It's that willingness to question the things the rest of us take for granted that I admire most about Beckett; the courage to ask questions that are dangerous because, if the traditions and meanings we hold so dear turn out to be false, what do we do then?
But amid the bleakness, there is also humour, and it's no surprise that there are so many comedians among Beckett's fans. His appeal lies in his directness – the sparse, unembellished prose that can make his meticulous stage directions unexpected. He leaves you with a sense that you knew what he meant, even if explaining it back would leave you lost for words. Direct and disturbing – it is impossible to grow tired of Beckett.





2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2015
2016








Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Esther Freud / Top 10 Love Stories



Esther Freud's top 10 love stories

From Boris Pasternak to Nancy Mitford, the novelist lines up the stories that have broken her heart

Esther Freud
The Guardian
Wednesday 28 April 2010


Dr Zhivago
Julie Christie and Omar Sharif in the film version of Dr Zhivago.
Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd. / Allstar

               Esther Freud was named by Granta magazine as one of the 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 1993. Her books include Hideous Kinky (1992), Peerless Flats (1993) and Gaglow (1997). Her most recent novel is Love Falls (2007).
              She is a judge of the 2010 Le Prince Maurice prize for literary love stories. The shortlist for this year's prize is East of the Sun by Julia Gregson; Small Wars by Sadie Jones and Whatever Makes you Happy by William Sutcliffe. The winner will be announced in Mauritius on 5 June, 2010.
            "The love stories that have stayed with me are the ones that broke my heart. Novels that managed to create the unbearable longing of two people to be together as well as the misunderstandings, disenchantment and lost hope when love slips beyond their reach."




1. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

This was the first book I read that took me on that journey. Rhett Butler's slow, cool devotion to Scarlett through so much of the novel, and the terrible moment when he stops loving her, and she realises she does, in fact, love him, had me feverishly begging fate, or Margaret Mitchell to intervene. My copy was battered and tear-stained by the time the book was finished.




2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre was responsible for a misguided belief in the power of romance that complicated my teenage years. The idea that you could lean out of your window and whisper your lover's name, and that he might actually hear you, appealed to me too much.



3. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Who can ever forget the moment when Tess fails to find the letter that has been pushed under her door? The scene is seared into the hearts of millions of readers across the world.




4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Possibly the greatest novel ever written. Tolstoy captures the rollercoaster arc of Anna's passion for Vronsky, and shows us the impossibility of her love ever being a match for what she's lost. The scenes between her and her small son whom she must abandon, are heartbreaking in their restraint, and it is these moments you remember, when Vronsky's ardour begins to fade.




5. Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

It's hard to beat a Russian love story, especially this epic tale, set against the backdrop of war, but Zhivago's love for Lara and the unexpected chance they have to re-ignite their passion when fate throws them together in exile, is hard to resist.



6. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford


Like consuming the most delicious treat. An acutely funny novel, it is told from the point of view of Fanny whose mother "The Bolter", has left her to be brought up by an aunt. She spends much of her time with her cousins, the eccentric, glamorous Radletts, and it is Linda Radlett – a composite of Mitford and her sisters – whose search for the perfect companion is at the heart of this wonderful book.




7. The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann

First published in 1936, this was years ahead of its time in its description of a young woman's affair with a married man. Lehmann takes you on her journey – the waiting, the bright moments of hope – without ever allowing you to lose sympathy for any of the characters. Passionate and brutally honest in its portrayal of how love can overwhelm your life.



8. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

In this collection of stories, Lahiri gives us three linked stories. Hema and Kaushik are two Bengali Americans whose parents were friends when they were young and who meet by chance in Rome. They are drawn to each other, irresistibly, even though Hema is about to be married. As the feelings between them intensify, you are consumed with longing for them to take courage and alter the course of their lives. But then fate – or nature – intervenes, and the pain of the ending had me gasping in physical pain.



9. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

A many stranded novel about loneliness and the chances missed in love. Alma, a 15-year-old girl attempts to make sense of her life after her father's death by unravelling the story of the novel her mother is translating. This beautiful, funny and mysterious story draws its characters together in the most unlikely but life-affirming way.





10. One Day by David Nicholls

Following the story of Emma and Dexter through 20 years of friendship, infatuation, missed opportunities, misguided marriages and eventual coming together, this is a brilliantly structured, hysterical and ultimately heartbreaking book.


THE GUARDIAN

,
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, April 24, 2010

My hero / Billy Wilder by David Nicholls

 

Billy Wilder by David Hockney

My hero 

Billy Wilder by David Nicholls

'It's the sweet, sour quality that I love in Wilder's movies'

David Nicholls
Saturday 24 April 2010

I

t's often forgotten in this era of movies-on-demand, but there was a time when you could wait years for a chance to see Some Like It Hot. In the late 70s I stayed up to watch it and became an immediate fan of Billy Wilder. Romantic comedy, farce, film noir, drama, war film, satire – Wilder and his collaborators excelled in them all, and yet it's fair to say he's not the most "cinematic" of directors. His priorities are character and story, and in this sense he's very much a writer's director. He uses voice-over, that most novelistic of screen devices, and relishes smart talk, much of which bears the stamp of his personality: droll, urbane, quick-witted, sometimes barbed or vulgar but also heartfelt, touching.

For all his sardonic pronouncements, Wilder worked wonderfully with actors, and the movies are crammed with virtuosic displays of what used to be called "business": the Cary Grant voice ("Nobody talks like that!") and the maracas in Some Like It Hot, the tennis racket and bowler hat in The Apartment – crowd-pleasing moments. Wilder was always a populist: "Some pictures play wonderfully to a room of eight people. I don't go for that. I go for the masses." And yet he never short-changed his audience, patronised or lectured them. Mass entertainment didn't have to mean mindless entertainment, which is perhaps why he fell out of favour in the 70s. "Most of the pictures they make nowadays are loaded down with special effects. I couldn't do that. I quit smoking because I couldn't reload my Zippo."

The Apartment jostles with Annie Hall and The Philadelphia Story as my favourite film. In one of the finest, saddest scenes, Shirley MacLaine sits in a Chinese restaurant and complains that they don't make the shrimp like they used to: "sweet and sour". It's this sweet, sour quality that I love in Wilder's movies, and which I aspire to in some of my own work. Romantic but never sentimental, cynical but humane, Wilder is proof that mainstream, popular entertainment can be smart too.

THE GUARDIAN




2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2015
2016






Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)