Category Archives: Literature

How French Intellectuals Lost Their Faith…

Posted on March 3, 2017 by bsixsmith

My new piece for Quillette… As the Socialist government of François Hollande slumps into obscurity, the favourites in this year’s French presidential elections are a liberal, Emmanuel Macron, a conservative, François Fillon, and a national conservative, Marine Le Pen. Amid … Continue reading →

Posted in Europe, Literature, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Truth, Imagination and Imperfection…

Posted on December 29, 2016 by bsixsmith

An early essay in The Halls of Uselessness, Pierre Ryckmans’ elegant and enlightening collection of a prose, is a review of Christopher Hitchens’ The Missionary Position. That venomous tract, bearing a title no dignified publisher should have accepted, reminds Ryckmans … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Literature, Reviews | 5 Comments

Orwell Against Modernity…

Posted on December 23, 2016 by bsixsmith

The ubiquity of George Orwell in British and American culture has much to do with his being the secular saint of journalists. If the media was run by Mormons, Joseph Smith would be as famous. He embodies their romantic illusions … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Conservatism, History, Literature | 2 Comments

Getting Rid of Books…

Posted on August 15, 2016 by bsixsmith

I am on holiday in England, at my parent’s house, and am throwing out some of the old books that I had left with them. I have hundreds here: the result of a childhood and adolescence spent rummaging through charity … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Literature, Personal, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Superficialities of Style…

Posted on August 14, 2016 by bsixsmith

In “A Criticism of Life”, the first essay of his spirited, pugnacious and sometimes disagreeable collection In Defence of T.S. Eliot, Craig Raine presents a rousing and convincing case for literature as an act of “measured consideration” that provides “focus, … Continue reading →

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Notes on Beginning a Novel…

Posted on July 25, 2015 by bsixsmith

You are not writing a novel if you are not writing. Books, like houses, are designed before they are built. Storytelling is no competition of speed. If your characters walked into the room would they have characters and would they … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature, Personal | Leave a comment

The Sporadic Sensitivity of Philip Larkin…

Posted on July 19, 2015 by bsixsmith

The exposure of hostile rhetoric aimed at immigrants, women and the poor diminished the posthumous reputation of Philip Larkin. Such insults were unearthed from his private correspondence, and had no harmful effects on any of their targets, but modern poets … Continue reading →

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