Bibliography, October 2012

BOTM: L. Strachey, Eminent Victorians

J. Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

J.L. Borges, Labyrinths

A. Burgess, Time for a Tiger
A. Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket
A. Burgess, Beds in the East

B. Chatwin, The viceroy of Ouidah
G. Garcia Marquez, No-one writes to the Colonel
L.P. Hartley, The Go Between
G.M. Fraser, Flash for Freedom
P. Levi, If this is a man*

How have I not read Eminent Victorians before?

The last few years reading have been for me a lesson in the Socratic principle (actually that's slightly different, but you get the point) of greater knowledge simply bringing a greater awareness of your own ignorance. A few years ago, I wrote this slightly pompous blog about all the reading I had done in my 20s and how happy I was about it. I still am, but looking back, I'm astonished by the things I've read since that simply weren't on the horizon. Some of those I already owned (and I noted those here), but many were stunningly obvious ones I'd not even thought about. I started reading Wodehouse on a recommendation only two years ago; I have more books by him than any author save the great Elinor M. Brent Dyer, author of the Chalet School stories (I have them all). 

Strachey's book is clearly in the same category. I've known about it for years: my parents had it; we've had it for a while, and yet I only read it now because I felt I'd read too much fiction these last few months and it looked short. But it's magnificent, albeit eclectic (who now would start their account of the Victorian era with a long section about the second archbishop of Westminster?). It's perceptive, peeling away some of the layers of Victorian legend from its heroes. It's also tart, funny and brilliantly written. The passages on the Oxford movement are probably the most enjoyable ones I've read on the subject. It's a monument to a singular mind and essentially reading for anyone who is even slightly interested in the period. JR will be reading it well before he's 33.