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BIOGRAPHY
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F
ew philosophy students in the 1970s could
avoid being asked “what is it like to be a
bat?” and, as Galen Strawson recalls this week,
Thomas Nagel’s answer to his own question
on the nature of consciousness became “one
of the most cited papers in all philosophy”.
Strawson is setting out some of the historical
context to the new play by Tom Stoppard
(pictured), The Hard Problem, which cites
Nagel as an influence and has sharply divided
critics at the TLS and elsewhere. One of the
glories of being our greatest living playwright
is the chance to write a hard play about a hard
subject and to guarantee a hard argument about
it. Two weeks ago, Peter Kemp complained
here of Stoppard offering “less drama than diagram”. Michael Caines responded with a tart
reference to those “with minds so fine that no
idea may be allowed to penetrate them”. Many
among the rest of us of us have returned to what
we once thought we knew about Thomas
Nagel’s bat.
What is it like to be the subject of a biography? And what are the tools by which a
writer may give an answer? Stuart Kelly uses
the publication of Ruth Scurr’s “formidable
and affecting” Life of the pioneer biographer
John Aubrey to examine the recent history of
the genre. He argues that while Scurr could
certainly have written “a conventional biography” of the man famed for his Brief Lives,
she has instead found an innovative solution
that is “as ingenious as it is simple”.
Just as a crumbling English identity was a
concern for John Aubrey, the role of the Welsh
in the making of England was a delicate matter
for Shakespeare, writes David Hawkes,
reviewing a new study by Marisa R. Cull.
Wales, he reminds us, has more Shakespearean princes than Hal alone, and provides a
“symbolic cipher” in which Tudor anxieties
were projected and concealed.
Ian Ground gives high praise to the idea of
beauty as “a form of love” in Paul Guyer’s A
History of Modern Aesthetics. Anthony Phelan
discusses a critical life of the “philosophical
critic” Walter Benjamin, and the problems of
disentangling from his thought the “strangely
disembodied uncarnal forms of his sexuality”.
PS
3
Stuart Kelly
Anthony Phelan
Lawrence Douglas
Nigel Perrin
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
POEMS
Ruth Scurr John Aubrey – My own life
Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings Walter Benjamin – A
critical Life. Lecia Rosenthal, editor Radio Benjamin; Translated by
Jonathan Lutes with Lisa Harries Schumann and Diana K. Reese
Bettina Stangneth Eichmann Before Jerusalem – The unexamined life
of a mass murderer; Translated by Ruth Martin
John Jay Facing Fearful Odds – My father’s story of captivity, escape
and resistance 1940–45
Descartes and Alain Badiou, Privatization, Cold water corals, etc
6
8
22
Oliver Reynolds
Robert Chandler
The Fifteen Schoolgirls Problem
Two Russian poems
HISTORY
9
Joseph Rykwert
Joan DeJean How Paris Became Paris – The invention of the modern
city. Catherine McNeur Taming Manhattan – Environmental battles in
the antebellum city
CLASSICS
10
Barbara Graziosi
Cristiana Franco Shameless – The canine and the feminine in ancient
Greece; Translated by Matthew Fox
PHILOSOPHY
11
Marya Schechtman
Ian Ground
Paul Snowdon Persons, Animals, Ourselves
Paul Guyer A History of Modern Aesthetics
COMMENTARY
14
Galen Strawson
Consciousness myth – Tom Stoppard’s ‘hard problem’ may be the
hardest there is – but it certainly is not new
Freelance
TLS November 26, 1982 – The early stuff
A. E. Stallings
Then & Now
ARTS
17
Kelly Grovier
Nancy Campbell
Jonathan Keates
Robert Motherwell A centenary survey of major works (Bernard
Jacobson Gallery)
Peder Balke (National Gallery)
Claire van Kampen Farinelli and the King (Sam Wanamaker
Playhouse)
FICTION
19
Ben Eastham
Tom McCarthy Satin Island
FICTION IN BRIEF
20
Peter Brown
Andrew Irwin
Jonathan McAloon
Sarah Crown
Emilie Bickerton
Han Kang The Vegetarian; Translated by Deborah Smith
Milena Michiko Flašar I Called Him Necktie; Translated by Sheila
Dickie
Jonas Karlsson The Room; Translated by Neil Smith
Yasmina Reza Happy Are the Happy; Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
Marie NDiaye Self-Portrait in Green; Translated by Jordan Stump
TRANSLATION PRIZES
21
Adrian Tahourdin
Abroad in English
LITERATURE
22
Peter Read
Robert Gordon
René Char Hypnos – Notes from the French Resistance 1943–44;
Translated by Mark Hutchinson
Franco Fortini The Dogs of the Sinai; Translated by Alberto Toscano
POETRY
24
John Greening
William Wootten
Sean O’Brien
Kit Wright Ode to Didcot Power Station
John Fuller The Dice Cup. Sketches from the Sierra de Tejada
Paul Batchelor The Love Darg
POETRY IN BRIEF
25
Beverley Bie Brahic
Nancy Gaffield Continental Drift. Chana Bloch Swimming in the Rain
– New and selected poems 1980–2015
David Harsent Fire Songs. David C. Ward Call Waiting
Colette Bryce The Whole and Rain-Domed Universe
Rory Waterman
Hilary Davies
IN BRIEF
26
LITERARY CRITICISM
28
David Hawkes
Marisa R. Cull Shakespeare’s Princes of Wales – English identity and
the Welsh connection
SOCIAL STUDIES
30
Michael Saler
Jill Lepore The Secret History of Wonder Woman
Dennis Skinner Sailing Close to the Wind. Imma Monsó A Man of His
Word. Santiago Roncagliolo La pena máxima. Mohsin Hamid
Discontent and its Civilizations. West Camel, editor Best European
Fiction 2015. Georges Simenon The Saint-Fiacre Affair. Robert
Hewison Cultural Capital. Melba Cuddy-Keane, Adam Hammond
and Alexandra Peat Modernism – Keywords
This week’s contributors, Crossword
31
NB
32
J. C.
Henry James’s piracy, Words for snow, Unoriginal titles
Cover image: Detail of “Sir James Long of Draycot and John Aubrey, hawking”. Courtesy of the Bodleian Library. Shelfmark: MS.Aubrey 3 (fol.186v–187r); p3 ©
Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images; p4 © Macduff Everton/Science Faction/Corbis; p7 © NordicPhotos/akg-images; p9 © The Art Archive/Alamy; p12 © Howard
Hodgkin; p17 © DACS 2015. Courtesy Bernard Jacobson Gallery; p18 (top) Courtesy of The Hearn Family Trust. Photo copyright of the owner; p18 (bottom) ©
Donald Cooper/Photostage; p19 © ADAGP Camille Henrot Courtesy the artist and Kamel Mennour, Paris; p21 © Joe Raedle/Getty Images; p22 © Roger
Viollet/Getty Images; p23 © Giorgio Lotti/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images.
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TLS FEBRUARY 27 2015