Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Monday, 3 February 2025

"The Times Literary Supplement (Nov 8, 2024)"

A tabloid newspaper, 28 pages. Mostly essay/review pieces. Books on philosophy, history, etc are covered, as well as literary works. There's one poem - "The Bat" by Robert Bernard Hass, which begins with "Observes the world mostly upside down/ And clinging fast to branch or ledge/ Lays heaven at his feet, hell at its head./ Its smiling face inverted into frown."

  • I liked Adam Mars-Jones' article about musicals.
  • Alan Jenkins' review of an anthology of Elegies is too much like the default for such reviews, discussing what should and shouldn't have been included.
  • Reviews usually unclude some adverse comments. For example. Michael Hughes' review of Niall Williams' "Time of the child" says "the fabular symbolism and Dickensian overtones ... are not tempered by equal doses of novelistic decorum or psychological plausibility"; "it would be redundant to indict .. the novel .. for its sentimental whimsy, since this is the furrow Williams has chosen to plough"; "it is fascinating to see such hoary old hokum spun from the pen of a real virtuoso."

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