Vincennes Review of Books 2023
It’s graph time:
A significant drop from the last three years, but made the Finchy at bang on 52 books (including rereads).
This was my year for reading Magisterial Biographies, including Lyndall Gordon’s The Imperfect Life of T. S. Eliot, Richard Ellman’s James Joyce and Jonathan Bate’s Bright Star, Green Light. I’m grateful for everything these books have taught me but I also don’t think biography is ever going to be a form I get into extensively. The thing is, you do actually know what’s going to happen and it’s always going to be a sad ending. Their wife is sent to an asylum, then dies, then they die. Their daughter is sent to an asylum, then they die, then their daughter dies. Their wife is sent to an asylum, then they die, then their wife dies. Sometimes, they just die in Italy!
Still, one of the things that I consistently enjoy about the Vincennes Review of Books is finding out that I’m wrong about everything. The first time I read Remembrance of Things Past I wrote “yeah I don’t get it” (loose but basically accurate paraphrase). Now, this is my favourite tea towel:
T. S. Eliot was quite a theme this year; as well as Lyndall Gordon’s biography, I also read Matthew Hollis’ biography of “The Waste Land” and Helen Gardner’s The Art of T. S. Eliot. The last of these is utterly charming, full of asides about how she doesn’t like cats or when children recite poetry in unison; both totally defensible positions that were closely related to the topic at hand, neither of which I expected to read in an academic treatise. If you’re currently writing a monograph, know that I’m very keen for these sorts of opinions.
Obviously, anyone who writes about T. S. Eliot needs to address his seemingly quite enthusiastic engagement with the more horrible ideas of his day. This is — also obviously — hard to write about for anyone who has devoted their working lives to study of his work. I’d like to propose, for anyone teaching or writing about problematic modernists, the Duce Scale:
There were about five consecutive and densely-written pages in the Gordon that could be effectively summarised as “You think of T. S. Eliot as a two-Duce modernist, but in fact he was a four-Duce modernist, gusting five.” You’ll notice that there are no zero-Duce modernists. If there were, it would probably be Simone Weil. I’m open to discussion on all of this.
Richard Ellman’s James Joyce formed the second half of the Ellman Double, the first half of which was Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newburyport. This (Ducks) is not only my book of the year, it’s in my top five books of all time. Of course blurbs on literary fiction books love to say things like “this book reminds you that there are still new possibilities for the novel as a form” and “I laughed out loud while reading this book!” when in fact they mean “this book has an unnamed narrator” and “this book contains some clearly signposted moments of broad comedy”. But Ducks really did remind me that there are still possibilities for the novel as a form, and I really did laugh out loud, not once but several times, while reading it.
In the past I’ve recommended books in twos, and while I’m on the topic of novel blurbs, have two absolute classics about literary pretentions:
Cakes and Ale — W. Somerset Maugham
Do you like zingers? Are you fascinated/horrified by social climbing? Is your ideal novel one in which everyone is totally morally compromised? If yes, you absolutely must read Cakes and Ale, a novel Maugham decided was so good it was worth destroying his best friend’s career over.
There was no better book for me to read in the year of the Magisterial Biography. Also, for a book that is about Victorian poetry, there were lots of fun little modernist Easter eggs, whether intentionally or not.
Or maybe you just want to read something compulsive where the stakes are really high for the protagonists but really low in real terms:
THAT’S RIGHT. THE CAMPUS NOVEL. Straight Man has everything you want from a campus novel; thwarted ambition, petty rivalries and set piece acts of physical violence played for laughs. Well, those are the things I want from a campus novel, anyway.
The Lock In — Phoebe Luckhurst
This might have been on my Books of the Year if I’d read it before Christmas. It’s got pin-sharp characterisation, good jokes, and some delightful moments of genuine emotional truth.
I did my aims for 2023, which as well as the Eliot books were Pepys 1667 and the Bible. Here are my aims for 2024:
Over the summer Matt and I went to see the Anselm Kiefer exhibition based on Finnegans Wake. On our way there I said “I’ll probably never read Finnegans Wake and I’m okay with that” then in the pub afterwards we bought two copies so we can enjoy it together. Even Richard Ellman strongly implies it’s pretty unreadable.
Do you want to join me? I’ll be doing the M’Cheyne plan again!
I’ve also got one more volume of Pepys to read, but it will span two years (ending May 2025/1669) so isn’t properly on my goals for the year this year.
Previous reviews: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006
Lists of books read: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004
