Crabbe: The Critical Heritage (ed: Arthur Pollard 1972) provides the full text of a number of contemporary reviews of The Tales. The following are summaries extracting what I saw as some of the main points of interest. [This entry is far from complete but I thought it would be useful to get something down and, …
Byron’s Religions
'Byron's Religions' was the title of the 2010 one-day Conference of the Newstead Abbey Byron society held at Nottingham University on May 1st. Personally I think that despite some very interesting papers I found this Conference something of a disappointment. Of course this may have much to do with the fact that I was not …
Scottish Idyll
An entry of purely personal interest, being an account of our holiday in Scotland in May. We spent the first couple of nights on Arran at the Kildonan Hotel (fairly obviously in the village of Kildonan which is at the southern tip of Arran). The hotel was decorated and furnished in a pleasing, if somewhat …
The Wire
Watching every episode of all 5 series of The Wire was an endeavour quite different to the other viewings of DVD box sets which I undertook during my hiatus in terms of both quantity and, more importantly, quality. It is one of those, relatively rare, items which undoubtedly belongs on both my blogs (which is …
Byron Journal – Academia and Byron’s Sexuality
I subscribe to the Byron Journal which is a bi-annual publication of The Byron Society. It is a somewhat strange mixture of extremely academic articles (especially most of the lengthy book review section), reports from various conferences and Byron societies around the world, and articles on various Byron related matters. Although some of the articles, …
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Game Therapy
As usual during an extended illness one of my chief weapons in staving off the emptiness and despair has been video games. I believe that much more serious consideration needs to be given to the therapeutic role which they can play for depressives. It is of course highly unlikely that this will happen given the …
Musical Notes
In terms of events attended over the past few months which I need to catch up with I find that music massively predominates. My own liking for particular composers, and above all Mahler, increases all the time: I am fortunate then that this year is the 150th Anniversary, and from September of this year to …
Turgenev – A Nest of Gentry
(This was actually intended for a March Miscellany but I never got around to writing one) The next Turgenev I read was A Nest of Gentry (1859 - so it actually predated On the Eve). At the core of this book is the doomed love affair between Lavretsky and Liza - an affair which never …
My Annus Horribilis
This entry attempts to explain why my blogs have fallen silent for the past 6 months and is therefore mainly of personal interest, although I include some cogitation on the barriers to those with MH issues getting involved in campaigning for better services etc., and also a brief summary of what I have been doing …
February 2010 Miscellany
Two more short Turgenev novels, included in one volume, both very good indeed. Rudin is the tale of an idealist young talker who inspires love in the young Natasha, but when it comes to a question of action (eloping with her in the face of her mother's disapproval) fails both Natasha and herself. The intensely moving, …
Moving Toyshop 