Introduction to Antiphilosophy by Boris Groys – review
An electrifying set of essays on continental thinkersBoris Groys, who has the trepidation-inducing title of Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, is the author of The Total Art of Stalinism, a provocative ...
What makes a ‘historical novel’?
The genre is 'not exactly jammed with greatness', according to one critic. Not true, there are tales that are truly greatJames Wood, professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard and a regular reviewer in the New Yorker, is the critic I mo...
The Event of Literature by Terry Eagleton – review
Terry Eagleton's theory of literature allows for the 'bad' as well as the goodIt would be natural to assume from the title of Terry Eagleton's new book that it might, in some way, be applying to literature Alain Badiou's idea of the event – the ruptu...
Stonemouth by Iain Banks
Appearances are deceptive in Iain Banks's homecoming novelThe literary career of Iain Banks resists easy classification. His 1984 debut, The Wasp Factory, was called a work of "unparalleled depravity" by the Irish Times. His third novel, The Bridg...
The Faith of the Faithless by Simon Critchley
Variations on the theme of a secular religionAt the end of his previous book, How to Stop Living and Start Worrying, Simon Critchley wrote: "If morality becomes a question, as it is on BBC Radio 4, of nicely educated people with shrill voices making ch...
Watchmen prequels: A hard act to precede
The forthcoming back-story excursions don't have many illustrious precedents – but there are some seriously classy exceptionsNormally if a comics company announced a new series featuring writers like Brian Azzarello, J Michael Straczynski and Len Wei...
Scottish independence won’t cut off British literature
English and Scottish literature have always been complicated hybrids, and separating the nations won't change thatJust before Alex Salmond gave the Hugo Young lecture, I received an email from the Scottish government announcing their plan to make it co...
The illuminations of reading by candlelight
Reading without electricity in a recent power cut actually turned out to add some juice to readingWe live high up in the hills in the Scottish Borders, so when the lights flickered and then failed this week, we were well prepared. The wood burner was s...
The illuminations of reading by candlelight
Reading without electricity in a recent power cut actually turned out to add some juice to readingWe live high up in the hills in the Scottish Borders, so when the lights flickered and then failed this week, we were well prepared. The wood burner was s...
When novels change history
Alternative history, or 'unchronie', seems to be going through something of a boom. How could it be otherwise?As with so many concepts in literature, the French have an elegant word for it: uchronie. For Anglophone readers and writers, we have to make ...
What we should take from the plagiarism scandal
The brouhaha over Markham's wholesale cribbing of other writers' work is an instructive reminder of how rarely 'original writing' actually isDid the earliest readers of Laurence Sterne's masterly Tristram Shandy get the joke when they read "Shall we fo...
Long live The Death of the Author