Tag Archives: Robert Graves

The Writer as Superman

Late Last Night Books

The Writer as Superman or Superwoman

Naturally I also admire artists and writers who are unexceptional at anything but their art. Nevertheless, the lives of people who do nothing but write or paint or make music, often seem barren or bleak. Who would want to live Kafka’s life, or Woolf’s, or Joyce’s? I have long been fascinated by multi-faceted geniuses like Leonardo, Michelangelo or Goethe, and those who performed great physical feats. Heroes live full lives. And by ‘heroes’ I don’t mean that we must approve of everything they did. But it’s useful to reflect on those artists who live on a grander scale, who consciously or unconsciously try to live as supermen or superwomen.

Pompeii and Wolf Hall: Two Kinds of Historical Novel

Late Last Night Books

Pompeii and Wolf Hall: Two Kinds of Historical Novel

By Garry Craig Powell

I have just finished reading, back to back, Robert Harris’ Pompeii and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Both are international bestsellers; both deserve to be for the quality of the research and the vividness of the writing; both authors are English and middle-aged. (One of them, Harris, is like me an alumnus of Selwyn College, Cambridge, and was, I believe, in residence while I was, but if I met him, I don’t remember.) Both are worth adding to your summer reading list, if you haven’t read them already. Still, there are some major differences between them, which illustrate, for me, the two main categories of historical fiction, so it may be useful to consider their qualities in a little more detail.