Brian Murray

Latest by Brian Murray in Chronicles

• Reviews

  September 1986

  Telling Stories Out of School

  It was E.G. Wodehouse, I think, who once told an anxious would-be writer of fiction that literary success was the result of careful adherence to a few very simple rules. Find a desk, Wodehouse suggested, and stock its drawers with sharp pencils and plenty of paper. Pull up a chair. Then, "Put your bum on the chair. And keep it there."

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• Reviews

  August 1986

  Ez and Old VORT

  At the time of his death in 1957, Lewis was probably better known for his persona than for his writings or the brilliant paintings and drawings that he also produced for more than four decades.

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• Reviews

  July 1986

  Flightless Bird

  Many see in Kurt Vonnegut a menace to society. Since the late 1960's, parents' groups and school boards in several states have launched drives to keep Slaughterhouse Five and other Vonnegut novels out of libraries and off syllabi.

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• View

  April 1986

  The Lure of Youth

  In the early 1920's, Wyndham Lewis began to discern the makings of a trend. Virtually everywhere he looked, Lewis found writing that retailed the wonders of childishness, precocity, and primitive energy; that implied, too, that life was quite finished at, say, 35.

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• Reviews

  February 1986

  Embarrassment of Riches

  During the 1950's, an increasing number of middle Americans no longer took seriously the principle that honest work carefully performed is its own true reward.

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• Reviews

  December 1985

  Wet Cement

  Iain Banks's first novel invites comparison with the work of Ian McEwan. During the mid-1970's, McEwan began to establish himself as one of Britain's most successful writers of fiction.

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• Reviews

  October 1985

  TRUTH in Green Trousers

  When the young American poet Ezra Pound arrived in London in the autumn of 1908, he had considerably more on his mind than a tour of Westminster Abbey and a boat ride down the Thames.

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• Reviews

  September 1985

  Academic Anomie & Root-Canal Remedies

  During the 1920's and 30's, it was possible for a talented young American author to earn a living publishing virtually nothing but short fiction. Scribner's, Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post, and numerous other widely circulated magazines all aggressively sought fiction that was not too radically experimental.

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• Reviews

  August 1985

  Bookshelves

  Nightfall for Liberalism? Daring Moderation Mocking the Booboisie

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• Bookshelves

  July 1985

  Cold Pricklies & Warm Fuzzies

  Joyce may serve us too much gore and gloom on occasion, but she goes easy on the schmaltz.

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• Polemics & Exchanges

  June 1985

  Polemics & Exchanges

  On Weapons of Despair, Professor Hawkins Responds

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• View

  March 1985

  The Mind of a Manichean

  "Religion, Love, Nature, Polity–All select things have a reference to Mysticism." –Novalis

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• Opinions & Views

  January 1985

  Scandalizing Uncle Ez

  Without doubt, Ezra Pound was a remarkable poet. His best verse is beautifully cadenced, delicately chiseled. Herbert Read described him as "an alchemist who transmuted the debased counters of our language into pure poetic metal. “deferentially. Eliot called him il miglior fabbro, the better craftsman.

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• View

  September 1984

  Red Hot Harlequin Romances

  In an afterword to one of the stories contained in You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Ms. Walker admits "I am sometimes naive and sentimental." On this point at least, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens does much to prove her right.

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