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trin's review
challenging
slow-paced
2.5
I loved Panter-Downes' war reporting and her short story collection, [book:Good Evening, Mrs Craven|1445861], but this odd, out of print book (which I delightfully found in an Oxfam in Hampstead) sadly didn't have the same effect. This is a biography of the English poet, novelist, and playwright Algernon Swinburne, specifically after his extreme alcoholism drove him to move to Putney with his friend Theodore Watts-Dunton, with whom he lived ... I guess the kids these days would say queerplatonically for the rest of his life.
I'll be honest: I have never read Swinburne's work and what I knew about him prior to reading this book could have fit on a fortune cookie. That's fine -- exciting even! I love learning new things! Unfortunately, Panter-Downes assumes <i>so</i> much Swinburne knowledge -- Swinburne <i>lore</i> -- on the part of the reader. I think I'm pretty well versed in literary matters for someone of my age and demographic (40, American) but I was lost in all these references to Swinburne and his circle: Max Beerbohm who? Edmund Gosse whomst? And was Swinburne himself really still such a going concern in the 1970s to not warrant any backstory or explanation?
Panter-Downes' writing is tart and entertaining in places but mostly I spent this book going "huh?"
I'll be honest: I have never read Swinburne's work and what I knew about him prior to reading this book could have fit on a fortune cookie. That's fine -- exciting even! I love learning new things! Unfortunately, Panter-Downes assumes <i>so</i> much Swinburne knowledge -- Swinburne <i>lore</i> -- on the part of the reader. I think I'm pretty well versed in literary matters for someone of my age and demographic (40, American) but I was lost in all these references to Swinburne and his circle: Max Beerbohm who? Edmund Gosse whomst? And was Swinburne himself really still such a going concern in the 1970s to not warrant any backstory or explanation?
Panter-Downes' writing is tart and entertaining in places but mostly I spent this book going "huh?"