Lockdown, for me, has been a time of great sadness and loss. My beloved friend Rabbi Pinter died of the virus and the sense of grief disturbed my soul. My oldest friend, Patrick, died far away. No funerals, no conversations. There is a dreamlike element to the length of this that fills me with dread; the idea that I will wake up and it will all be true. Netflix, Facebook and Zoom dominating social and working life, an utter dependence on my phone and the end of intimacy and real physical presence.
Read moreReading in the time of Coronavirus - Part Five
As a Francophile, I am cheered by Penguin’s decision (even though I have only just learned of it, some years after the event) to republish every book – 75 in all – in the Maigret series by Georges Simenon, all with fresh translations. Brought to life on screen in Britain by actors such as Michael Gambon and more latterly Rowan Atkinson, the terse, pipe-smoking detective made his literary entrance in the 1931 novella, Pietr the Latvian. A tale of international crime gangs, hitmen and familial love and revenge, all set against the backdrop of inter-war Paris.
Read moreReading in the Time of Coronavirus - Part Four
I can’t claim my lockdown has been terribly studious. My wife and I have been incarcerated with our daughter, who turned four during the crisis and enjoyed the controlled carnage of a video-conferenced birthday party with 20 other socially-starved preschoolers. Like parents everywhere, lockdown life has mostly consisted of an endless rota of work and childcare as my wife and I attempt to maintain our careers, the little one’s routine and our collective sanity.
Read moreReading in the Time of Coronavirus - Part Three
My lockdown joy has come in the form of a slim collection of British poetry of the 1890s, Poetry of the Nineties, edited by RKR Thornton and focused on what came to be called the Decadent movement. Featuring the likes of Lionel Johnson, Arthur Symons, and WB Yeats, and tempered by the less mournful Kipling and Housman, the collection is a portrait of a time seized by an apparent clash between cultural convention and free playing vitality.
Read moreReading in the Time of Coronavirus - Part Two
Last Friday, Jonathan Rutherford recommended the Russians Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam. The former reassured us from Soviet exile that, ‘In Petersburg we’ll meet again / As though it was where we’d laid the sun to rest.’ From our more mundane exile we can look ahead to reunions in our own Petersburgs. In the meantime I’ve been led to books whose vividness contrasts with this strange, sterile passage of time.
Read moreReading in the Time of Coronavirus - Part One
I’ll start with the thrillers of Robert Crais which I’ve been reading. They feature two great characters, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. It’s best to start with the first in the series, The Monkey’s Raincoat, although LA Requiem might be the definitive story. Pike beats Jack Reacher as a modern heroic figure, less perfect, more rough edged, a crusader of the good. There is a lot of cultural snobbery about the thriller, but if you want insights into society, power, masculinity, the pursuit of justice, you’ll find nowhere better to look.
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