Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
The disillusion of an upper-class Caliban
GORDON PARSONS negotiates an exhaustive biography of WH Auden that explores his growing detachment from England
THE TINTIN OF HIS ERA? WH Auden (R) and novelist Christopher Isherwood pictured at Victoria Station, 1938, en route to China. Attempting to combine reportage and art, they spent six months in 1938 visiting China amid the Sino-Japanese War, working on their book Journey to a War (1939), and subsequently emigrated to the US
[National Media Museum from UK/CC]
ANGUS REID considers the power of the podcast as a vehicle for consensus building in opposition to mainstream media narratives
GLENN FOSBRAEY recommends a biography worth reading for both existing George Michael fans and those yet to be converted
FRANCIS DEVINE introduces a new collection of essays that draws on Pease McKenna’s example to indicate future paths for the movement
KEVIN DONNELLY and MARIA DUARTE review Shoot the People, The Last One For The Road, Rosebush Pruning, and Moana
JAMES WALSH recommends an exceptional documentary about the experience of Western doctors in Gaza
The Island: WH Auden and the Last of Englishness
Nicholas Jenkins, Faber, £25
THE NEW YORK TIMES obituary of Wystan Hugh Auden in 1976 noted that “he was often called the greatest living poet of the English language.”
In one of his essays he claimed that “the only method of attacking or defending a poet is to quote him. Other kinds of criticism, whether strictly literary, or psychological or social, serve only to sharpen our appreciation or abhorrence by making us intellectually conscious of what was previously but vaguely felt.”
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