MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes the valiant defiance of two gay Scottish painters whose example resists both collectors’ taste and historical fiction
Distant socialising
Writer Jan Woolf reflects on the benefit of talking among your selves during lockdown
WRESTLING WITH HER SELF: Julia Gu
Essays on contemporary Latin American feminism, a poetry debut by a queer Texan of Mexican heritage, and a lush volume of tango and milonga drawings
JOHN McINALLY welcomes a rigorous class analysis of the history and exploitation of sectarianism by the Scottish ruling elite
The bard pays homage to his two muses: his wife and his football club
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by an incoherent show that fails to question stereotypical assumptions about the Soviet Union
WILL STONE, JAMES WALSH and MARIA DUARTE review Souleymane’s Story, Sunlight, Good Fortune, and After The Hunt
THEY used to say that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. Not at all, it’s a very sense-able thing to do.
But does one address oneself as “you” or “I?” Writer Ian McEwan pointed out that the self became fashionable late last century in the self-help universe, but Freud rattled his stick along the railings of the mind many years earlier, using mythological and religious constructs to define them.
In fact, there are many selves to talk to. There is your self and the one(s) others see but, in glorious isolation, they can be brought together and talk to each other. Which is what people in solitary confinement do to keep sane and to keep language honed and toned.
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JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual
The playwright and artist reflects on the ways in which reviewing can nourish the creative act
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends a biography of a Portuguese modernist poet who maintained a philosophical approach to his own being and is best encountered within the playfulness of his writing