| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
What is most surprising about this book is its origin. It was written by the editor Cyril Connolly in a year of depression following the breakdown of a relationship. He was editor of an avante garde magazine in London during WWII. And yet this book is purely classical in its views, and it is perhaps for that reason that it is entirely relevant today, based in the practical accomodation of human nature that gave rise to our greatest civilisations and yet very aware of the high ideals and aspirations that drove them.
His observations on human relationships are accurate; his insights into the causes of the breakdown of marriage seem simple but inescapable because of that, and in my job as a general practitioner doctor, I always find that couples in the middle of a breakdown in their relationship are able to draw some comfort or insight from this book. His observations on art, the three requisites for a masterpiece, if accepted by the reader, go a long way to explaining the incompatibility of modern and classical art.
The most famous quote from this book (the author was obese and self indulgent) 'Inside every fat man a thin one is wildly signalling to be let out' is trite compared to his comments on the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Taoism and Confucianism are observed in the same detached way as Christianity, all of it in the most exquisite prose than poignantly brings home to the reader the bankruptcy of much modern literary style.
It is easy to see the author as pompous and arrogant, but he succeeds in achieving what he says in the first pages: 'To weave a book that will last a thousand years, the writer must learn to use invisible ink'. Just so. He was 40 when he wrote this book. In a central chapter he states: 'No one over 35 is worth meeting who cannot teach us more than we can learn from a book'. Perhaps. This book is one of my most treasured possessions. It has been a tutor in life. It is classical, eternal, profound, and in a thousand years it will be still be just as relevant.
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
