- Paperback: 283 pages
- Publisher: Andre Deutsch Ltd; New ed of 2 Revised ed edition (8 Feb 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0233989773
- ISBN-13: 978-0233989778
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.4 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 768,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The autobiography of literary figure Cyril Connolly, providing insight into his upper-class upbringing and life at Eton and Oxford, together with advice on how to avoid the pitfalls that await the would-be writer. First published in 1938.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Half of the book is written as advice to a young writer, around the theme of how a novel might last ten years. Contains a brief history of literary trends from the 'mandarin' prose of the Georgians to the inter-war generation. Connolly writes immaculately and contains the famous warning that there is no more dreary enemy of art that "the pram in the hall"
The other half is a straight autobiography of his Edwardian childhood, through prep school (as a contemporary of Orwell) and Eton. His descriptions are splendid.
More accessible than 'The Unquiet Grave', a book I would recommend to anyone with literary aspirations.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Not just a tome for the product of Public Schools to get their hands on (although it should be an obligatory text before being allowed to pass out, it will tell you more about yourself than you ever want to know), this is one of the best - maybe the best - book on the nature and reasons for our current class system. It details the forces governing, and the implication of, the Public School system based on Connolly's own experience and is astute and unforgiving about the system's far-reaching consequences and flaws. His particular triumph is to show us how the future of the upper class is branded into them in the classroom and that the extremes experienced in that environment are such that Public School pupils are never free of their consequences. Absolutely brilliant - and not a little unsettling.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
An Unnecessary Book
2 Aug 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
In this, his most famous work, Cyril Connolly refers to George Orwell's assessment of "Picture of Dorian Gray" as an unnecessary book, an opinion with which he comes to concur. After finishing this work, I can bring the same charge here. Startling in 1938 when it was first written in its sexual frankness and exposure of the corporal discipline at the public schools of the time, it has since outlived its relevancy, ironic as it is the topic it is ostensibly most concerned with, literary immortality (defined as being read for at least 10 years). The book is divided into 3 sections, the first having to do with varying literary styles (the Mandarin versus the Vernacular), the second with the Enemies of Promise (what makes a writer not live up to his or her potential) and lastly a memoir of his boyhood ending with his graduation from Eton and entrance to Oxford, having just the most superficial connection with the first two .
The first section comes across as a parlor game (similar to placing writers in Isaiah Berlin's Hedgehog or Fox classification system) and ultimately no more helpful than that. The second is full of advice that frequently seems dated and often sexist (writers are encouraged not to have children as the "pram in the hallway" is just a distraction, unless you have a wife willing to deal with said pram and allow you to work). Only the last section, wonderfully written, recalling the petty motivations of boyhood and the intensity of the drive for the "glittering prizes" at Eton, holds up, and even this section goes into details of personalities that were important to the writer but mean little to the reader.
As an editor and critic, Connolly accomplished much in his lifetime but now he is mostly forgotten except for this work, which ultimately is an explanation of why he didn't accomplish more. While it has its intermittent charms and interest, and certainly has historical importance, it is not a work that need have lasted the above mentioned 10 years, no less the 78 years this reprint has allowed.
The first section comes across as a parlor game (similar to placing writers in Isaiah Berlin's Hedgehog or Fox classification system) and ultimately no more helpful than that. The second is full of advice that frequently seems dated and often sexist (writers are encouraged not to have children as the "pram in the hallway" is just a distraction, unless you have a wife willing to deal with said pram and allow you to work). Only the last section, wonderfully written, recalling the petty motivations of boyhood and the intensity of the drive for the "glittering prizes" at Eton, holds up, and even this section goes into details of personalities that were important to the writer but mean little to the reader.
As an editor and critic, Connolly accomplished much in his lifetime but now he is mostly forgotten except for this work, which ultimately is an explanation of why he didn't accomplish more. While it has its intermittent charms and interest, and certainly has historical importance, it is not a work that need have lasted the above mentioned 10 years, no less the 78 years this reprint has allowed.
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