The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
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Jonathan Coe - A novelist who takes politics seriously
JOHN GREEN recommends that rare thing, a British novelist who is politically aware, entertaining and who writes to the moment
CLASS STRUGGLE: In the long history of strikes at British Leyland, (L) in 1956 a striker at the Austin car works at Longbridge, Birmingham, attempts to stop a vehicle entering the factory. The strike was called by trade unions following the dismissal of 6,000 workers
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
ANGUS REID is bowled over by an exuberant film about the making of Keith Jarrett’s legendary concert
MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
WE are living through one of the worst crises of capitalism globally, and in Britain we have consecutively experienced several of the most incompetent and callous governments in living memory. But where are the contemporary novelists tackling this rich seam of material? I don’t see any Jonathan Swifts or George Orwells, not even anyone like US authors Philip Roth or Barbara Kingsolver.
There is, however, a lone exception and that is Jonathan Coe. He is the only contemporary English novelist I know of who grapples viscerally with the political and social crisis we are experiencing.
Born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in 1961, he has long been interested in both music and literature.
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With the recent release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie One Battle After Another, STEPHEN ARNELL gives the storied history of the British real-life left-wing urban guerillas
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends a dazzling production of Bernstein’s opera set in a world where chaos and violence are greeted by equanimity
MANJEET RIDON relishes a novel that explores the guilty repressions – and sexual awakenings – of a post-war Dutch bourgeois family
This plundering of the archive tells us little about reality, and more about the class bias of the BBC, muses DENNIS BROE