The Life of Kingsley Amis - Couverture souple

Leader, Zachary

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0810127598 ISBN 13 : 9780810127593

Editeur : Northwestern University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Book by Leader Zachary

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Here is the authorized, definitive biography of one of the most controversial figures of twentieth-century literature, renowned for his blistering intelligence, savage wit and belligerent fierceness of opinion: Kingsley Amis was not only the finest comic novelist of his generation–having first achieved prominence with the publication of Lucky Jim in 1954 and as one of the Angry Young Men–but also a dominant figure in post—World War II British writing as novelist, poet, critic and polemicist.

In The Life of Kingsley Amis, Zachary Leader, acclaimed editor of The Letters of Kingsley Amis, draws not only on unpublished works and correspondence but also on interviews with a wide range of Amis’s friends, relatives, fellow writers, students and colleagues, many of whom have never spoken out before. The result is a compulsively readable account of Amis’s childhood, school days and life as a student at Oxford, teacher, critic, political and cultural commentator, professional author, husband, father and lover. Even as he makes the case for Amis’s cultural
centrality–at his death Time magazine claimed that “the British decades between 1955 and 1995 should in fairness be called ‘the Amis era’”–Leader explores the writer’s phobias, self-doubts and ambitions; the controversies in which he was embroiled; and the role that drink played in a life bedeviled by erotic entanglements, domestic turbulence and personal disaster.

Dazzling for its thoroughness, psychological acuity and elegant style, The Life of Kingsley Amis is exemplary: literary biography at its very best.

Revue de presse :

"Leader has surpassed himself... he gives us not only the man, but also his milieu; he gives us not only the compelling virtues but also the staggering flaws. This is the best biography I have read for ages: deeply researched, crisply written and beautifully judged" (Dominic Sandbrook Daily Telegraph)

"Very thorough and very straight-talking. It's also very clear in its aims...He displays the facts of each matter plainly, allowing the reader to deliver their own praise and blame, and counterbalances them with his attention to the work. It's an impressively well-judged response" (Andrew Motion Guardian)

"Marvellous...It has become a fashion to denounce long biographies as telling us more than we need to know, but Leader's is a triumphant vindication of its 900-plus pages. It's a pleasure to read, and the accumulation of detail gives a real sense of a life being led" (Jeremy Lewis Independent)

"This is a book of true stature about a complex talent. Few literary biographies can match it for depth and intimacy" (John Carey Sunday Times)

"Marvellous...I ought to say that this book is 200 pages too long, but as I enjoyed almost every word of it, I can't" (Ferdinand Mount Spectator)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Northwestern University Press
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0810127598
• ISBN 13: 9780810127593
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 1012