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| It's always the same old story Great writers never die, they just fade awayLiterature and longevity make poor companions. If most writers' reputations are made, or at least begun, before the age of 40, then very few novelists put many runs on the scoreboard after 70. Arguably, they can even start to damage their reputations, as anguished fans concede that their idols have feet of clay.Philip Roth is often cited as a great contemporary who has enjoyed a remarkable late flowering, from American Pastoral to Exit Ghost. But now, aged 76, his increasingly thin fiction – for example, his latest, The Humbling, massacred by the reviewers – suggests that he might be well advised to call it a day. Small chance. Leaving aside hungry publishers and agents, a failing life force will persuade most writers to go on to the bitter end. Another reason? Even inferior art will continue to have meaning where life itself seems pointless.Take Vladimir Nabokov. There is every reason to suspect he knew that The Original of Laura was far below his best work, but he battled on with it, even on his deathbed. Finally, admitting defeat in his last weeks, he ordered its destruction, even though this was a deed he could not bring himself to undertake and bequeathed to his luckless inheritors. Amid the acres of commentary that will greet Penguin's launch of this posthumous curiosity, it will be intriguing to see how many critics conclude that the old boy must have known that the game was up.Ageing great writers recognise the inevitable no more than the over-optimistic late starter. Leo Tolstoy wrote "I Cannot Be Silent" at the age of 79. Resurrection, his last novel of any consequence, appeared in 1900 when he was 72. Three score years and 10 still seems to retain its biblical magic, though not, strangely, in art: Picasso, and Matisse painted memorably deep into their 80s.But now that 80 is the new 70, you might think that literary endeavour would flourish among octogenarians. The evidence is not encouraging. Yes, Goethe completed Faust at 81, but here in Britain, both Graham Greene and William Golding published new, and inferior, books in their 80s.Doris Lessing won the Nobel prize for literature in 2007, aged 87, and published The Cleft in 2008. But even her most ardent fans would agree that she'll be remembered for The Grass Is Singing, and The Golden Notebook, published in 1962, when she was 43.It's a measure of the desperate condition of the British book trade that no publisher is going to tell a big-name writer that he or she would be better off leaving their latest typescript in the bottom drawer. Anyway, if literature is your life, then to be told that the rest is silence is a peculiar kind of cruelty. The issue is existential: how many of us, writers or not, have the self-knowledge to recognise our limits?In this context, I am fascinated by the example of William Shakespeare. As one of his finest biographers, Stephen Greenblatt, has put it, he always wrote "as if he thought that there were more interesting things in life to do than write plays", and stepped down with a carefree grace.In his final years he collaborated with John Fletcher, though not to much effect, and with a sense of going through the motions. Artistically, he had already stopped, some years short of 50, in the most remarkable way.Strictly speaking, The Tempest, probably written in 1611, is not Shakespeare's last play. But it remains an astonishing and telling farewell to the "rough magic" of his creativity and an extraordinary example of self-willed resignation.Where King Lear explores the impossibility of retirement, and the catastrophe of letting go, in The Tempest, the playwright seems to celebrate it. "Every third thought," says Prospero, "shall be my grave." He says that he is at the height of his powers but he's going to drown his book "deeper than did ever plummet sound"– break his magic staff and retire to Milan, implicitly to Stratford.This, says Greenblatt, "is represented not as weakness but as a moral triumph". But, then, Shakespeare was a genius.Whiffle and other Christmas piffleThe inevitable run-up to Christmas is the signal for publishers to try locating the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, aka the Great Christmas Bestseller, a genre of short books designed, literally, as stocking fillers. Never mind that almost no one has managed to hit the jackpot, despite punting tens of thousands of pounds on forgettable titles: publishers have not ceased their quest for geese to lay another golden egg. This year's Christmas turkeys include Adam Jacot de Boinod's The Wonder of Whiffling and Other Extraordinary Words in the English Language (Particular Books). Well, good luck to him, but my money, already recorded here, is on The Last Word: Tales From the Tip of the Mother Tongue (Bloomsbury), by Ben MacIntyre . It's the perfect antidote to all mothers-in-law and every seasonal hangover.TV literary criticism for the Twitter generationTelevision abhors a vacuum. No sooner have Richard and Judy faded from our screens than Sky1 announces the launch of a daytime show, Angela and Friends, presented by Coronation Street actress Angela Griffin. This will include a books slot fronted by a new face, Alex Heminsley, who will have the power to select and criticise the chosen titles, aiming at a "younger and trendier" audience. The omens are good. Ms Heminsley used to write for these pages, so she is obviously gifted, attractive, wise and incredibly well-read. Let's hope she can import the highest literary criteria to the small screen. Book-loving viewers will be able to help her. The show will be soliciting contributions via Skype and Twitter. R&J already seems so yesterday...Philip RothDoris LessingGraham GreeneWilliam ShakespeareWilliam GoldingVladimir NabokovThomas MannRobert McCrumguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Why a good cover makes a good book better Call me shallow (actually, please don't) but I think a good cover can be a significant component of a good readIt's official: the nation is in the grip of Naboko-fever. You can't open a newspaper, switch on the radio, or click open a Guardian blog without stumbling across a reference to the late great Vladimir Nabokov (see what I mean?). Like the Red Aztec Convertible forever lurking in Humbert Humbert's rear-view mirror, Nabokov seems to be everywhere right now. Which has got to be a Very Good Thing indeed. And to celebrate/contribute/capitalise on this frenzy for all things Nabokovian, Penguin are reissuing all of Nabokov's books – an act only the very churlish could possibly find something to complain about.So here goes.Maybe this is just a knee-jerk reaction against change (only time will tell) and perhaps I'm just being painfully precious and petty (wouldn't be surprised) but I have to say I'm not too keen on the covers of the reissues. To me, the books look like something you'd find either hung on the wall of a six-form art class, or resting on the bedside-table of a sickly Victorian child. They don't so much leap off the shelf as fade into the wallpaper. I can only assume that someone in the Penguin design team concluded that an insipid and watery pencil drawing was the best visual representation of a gorgeously lyrical prose style. Hopefully they'll have grown on me by the time they get round to reissuing the next batch. If not, I'll be disappointed, but not overly concerned. I'll simply sigh at a wasted opportunity and return to my battered, Sellotape-bound secondhand copy of Lolita (Berkley Publishing Corporation, Medallion Edition, Jan 1977). Which brings us to the point of this article: to me, this Berkley edition, with its plain black cover and flaming red text, IS Lolita. It looks dark and intimidating and has the whiff of the forbidden about it. Not that I'm suggesting book covers should imply elitism, simply that I cannot read Lolita without picturing this cover. It seems entirely apt for Humbert Humbert's deranged musings.I'm sure I'm not alone in developing an emotional attachment to a particular cover – one that goes beyond any sentimental associations which may exist with the book itself (such as it being bequeathed by a dying loved one, etc.) Rather, this attachment arises solely from the cover's ability to capture the very spirit of the text so that the two things become intrinsically linked. This is something I have become more conscious of while updating my own literary blog, Three Score & Ten (please excuse the blatant plug). In my weekly virtual trawl through cyberspace in search of appropriate cover artwork to illustrate the entries, I've been struck by how some covers are decidedly more appropriate than others.Obviously, the text is the thing, but the cover of a book can surely influence our reading of said text. I'm sure there are many readers of Breakfast at Tiffany's who cannot help but picture Holly Golightly looking uncannily similar to Audrey Hepburn thanks to the cover photograph's tyrannical hold over our imagination (in which case I can heartily recommend the 1984 Abacus edition for a lovely Hepburn-free cover).And so, my virtual trawl is often followed by a physical trawl through the secondhand bookshops of London in search of those elusive perfect covers. I know they're out there: I've seen 'em. For example, the 1996 Minerva edition of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain has to be one of my favourite covers to one of my favourite books: the stark black and white image of a lone sanatorium, nestling in stately isolation beneath a foreboding forest of dark pines, while a distant mountain peak looms high above, captures brilliantly the rarefied atmosphere of privileged isolation which seeps throughout the book; of a sick society, oblivious to the encroachment of the modern world and the horrors of the Great War to come. Similarly, Faber and Faber's first paperback edition of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy still remains for me the definitive artwork: the hunched raincoated back of a solitary figure, disappearing down those monochrome streets, into a collage of bright red American miscellany (a fire hydrant, a bottle of tomato ketchup, a vibrator, a skull, a tea-cup). To me, this is the perfect visualisation of Auster's playful postmodern noir – and far superior to the current edition's blurred photo of an anonymous apartment block.So, which are the covers that succeed in capturing the spirit of the text for you? And how about the ones that ruin your trip to the bookshelf, either by missing the point completely or by being offensive in their blandness (the latest Bellow editions, with their interchangeable abstract photos of banal "urban living", are a case in point). Or perhaps Penguin got it right the first time with the classic three stripe design and book covers should be a case of less is more, leaving the imaginings between the reader and the written word...PublishingFictionWayne Gooderhamguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Roundup: Books on writing and words Four authors delve into the past and look into the future of books. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Book buzz: What's new in publishing and on the list Holiday sales, writers helping writers and another Austen mashup. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Must You Go?: My Life With Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser It may lack sensational revelations but Antonia Fraser's memoir of married life with Pinter is eccentric and hilarious, says Rachel CookeSome years ago I was despatched to interview Lady Antonia Fraser, Âbiographer of Mary, Queen of Scots and wife of Harold Pinter, then Britain's most famous living playwright. I recall it vividly. Lady ÂAntonia, girlish even at 70, was smiling but queenly, a mode I rather enjoyed; being dead common, I'm always happy to play courtier to my interviewees. When she decided to make us tea, we repaired to the kitchen of her ÂHolland Park house, a room she approached tentatively, as if a bomb might have been planted there (perhaps she was fearful of stumbling on her Âhusband; Pinter, even by her account, had a famously awful temper). "Could you get the milk?" she said, at ease by the kettle, her voice as rich as fine violet creams. Of course! I opened the Fraser/Pinter fridge. Inside lurked just three items: the milk, a bottle of champagne and, wrapped in plastic, a sliced loaf.I thought about this refrigerator as I read Must You Go?, Fraser's account of her 33-year relationship with ÂPinter (they lived together from 1975 until the playwright's death from cancer on Christmas Eve, 2008). Mostly, her memoir confirms the impression gained from her fridge: that the Fraser/Pinter household was somewhat grand, that the couple usually took supper outside the home – in restaurants, at the houses of their well-connected friends – rather than on a tray in front of Prime Suspect (Harold, writes his thriller-loving wife, "did not understand the mentality of one who was keenly awaiting the next Lee Child"). But, still, I do worry about that loaf because Fraser also reveals that she and Harold did not eat bread, not even when they were staying with the film director Mike Nichols and his TV anchor wife, Diane Sawyer, where it was delivered to the door fresh every Âmorning. Who was the brown-sliced for? A passing tradesman?Must You Go? is replete with Lilliputian details about bread, flowers and the like; Fraser, being both a wife, and one now cruelly bereft, has delivered a book filled with the comforting and the quotidian rather than the dripping, bloody facts so beloved of biographers. Her only real revelation is the news that Pinter, while sleeping with Joan Bakewell, with whom he had an affair before he was married to Fraser, was also carrying on with an American woman she refers to as "Cleopatra" (Fraser naughtily calls it a "more intimate" relationship than the one he enjoyed with Bakewell).Her diaries, which comprise the majority of the text, have an infuriatingly excised quality. Determined only to "call back yesterday" so far as Harold is concerned, she reveals next to nothing about her thousands of famous acquaintances – though, happily, even she can't resist describing how she heard Diana, Princess of Wales, tell Shimon Peres that, yes, she'd love to visit Israel, "anything for some sun". Also that, at the height of the Rushdie crisis, William Shawcross, adoring biographer of the Queen Mother, confessed he would have "withdrawn The Satanic Verses if he were Salman"). The result is often staccato, and a tease. On the subject of life with Harold, however, Fraser's memoir is also unremittingly delicious: strange, rarefied, frequently hilarious.Fraser first clapped eyes on Harold Pinter across a crowded restaurant, and she liked what she saw. But the bolt of love struck only on their third encounter, at a gathering to celebrate the first night of The Birthday Party, directed by Fraser's brother-in-law, Kevin Billington. At home time she approached the playwright, who had black, curly hair and pointed ears "like a satyr", to tell him she'd enjoyed the play. Pinter looked at her with his black eyes. "Must you go?" he asked. Fraser wearily considered the logistics of tomorrow: the school run, the research to be done on her biography of Charles II. "No," she said. "It's not Âabsolutely essential." They talked until six in the morning. At this point, Harold and Antonia had both been Âmarried for 18 years: he to the actress Vivien ÂMerchant, she to Hugh Fraser, the ÂConservative MP. Between them they had seven children.Their affair was a great scandal, or at least it was seen as such by the newspapers. No one else – with the possible exception of Merchant – seems to have been terribly bothered. Four months into their passion, Hugh Fraser asked his wife if she was in love with someone else. "Yes!" she said. She then revealed this someone's name. "The best living playwright," said Hugh. "Very suitable." Two months later Harold came to talk to Hugh about the prospect of his shacking up with Antonia: "Hugh and Harold Âdiscussed cricket at length, then the West Indies, then Proust. I started to go to sleep on the sofa. Harold politely went home." Fraser thinks that returning to the bachelor state suited her Âemotionally distant husband, though she is also sweet enough to acknowledge that she might not have been the perfect wife. Her diary for 16 August 1975 reads: "Harold in London begins to plan our new life. Me: 'I've got to learn to live with someone. Togetherness. I've never really had that.' True. Thought I would when I first married but Hugh didn't want that. I remember instituting Bible readings in bed... but Hugh, horrified, went to sleep! Who can blame him?"So, the Jewish boy from the East End and the ÂCatholic aristocrat embarked on life together and it was bliss, for all that her parents, the Earl and ÂCountess Longford, initially Âdisapproved ("Furious with Dada's morality... I thought about trying to explain to him about passion, but what's the point? He only likes Âpeople like Myra Hindley, who are apparently repenting of Âpassion"). Life seems to have been one long round of dinners and first nights and important meetings, of doting children and Âadorable grandchildren; though she occasionally claims she and Harold were "broke", they spend an awful lot of time in smart hotels. But this is not to say that Pinter was easy. He wasn't! He had a pathological hatred of flies, a bizarre desire to stick up for ÂSlobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader, and, outside the soothing confines of their home, a humour like fire and brimstone.Fraser's memoir sags in the middle, during what she calls the "high noon" of their marriage – largely, I suppose, because they're pretty happy. In the 1980s Harold is admittedly beset by an existential despair at the state of the world. But there is always the consolation of his wife. "I love you wildly, and that is my solace," he tells her. There are other consolations, too, like the validation of their marriage, a delightful show of Catholic sophistry in which a priest agreed to a "dispensation" for Pinter so that he and Fraser could have the church ceremony she craved – without conversion, or even instruction. Also, later, the glorious election of Tony Blair to the leadership of the Labour party. Only he turns out to be such a disappointment – that blasted war in Iraq – that Fraser must go to Chequers for lunch alone.Pinter was richly rewarded for his labours. He turned down a knighthood but happily accepted the award of Companion of Honour. In 2005 he received the Nobel prize for literature. But by this time he was terribly ill, having been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2001. Reading about his treatment, and his wife's fears – she Googles survival rates, and her stomach turns over – is sad and touching. Except that, however physically frail, Pinter remained a monster of egotism. Fraser describes a visit to her husband's surgeon, in which he details which bit of Harold he intends lopping off. But the playwright's mind will wander. On the doctor's desk is a copy Pinter has sent him of his clunking great poem Cancer Cells (boy, Pinter was a bad poet). Fraser writes: "We'd both been eyeing it and in unspoken accord longed to know what he thought of it. 'I got your poem,' he said at last. 'Very enjoyable,' he said with a humorous, almost indulgent smile. It was the most inappropriate word, surely, for such a poem!" We're told that Pinter was cheered by this. Well, it made me smile, too, if not for precisely the same reason.Harold PinterRachel Cookeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |