JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
Faust and furious
GORDON PARSONS recommends the biography of the German polymath whose life provides an interesting take on a revolutionary age
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Last Breath, Sister Midnight, Opus, and The Electric State
HENRY BELL is moved by the account of scientists under seige in Leningrad who preferred to starve rather than sacrifice their life-saving work
RUTH AYLETT recommends two anthologies: one that bears witness to refugee and immigrant experiences, and the other to our political relationship to water
SETH SANDRONSKY appreciates a fresh take on a 100-year-old novel that helps to contextualise the current moment of conspicuous wealth, waste and climate chaos
A no-nonsense ex-Garda female cop, Scandi-noir’s newest flawed hero, the lure of Aussie gold, and unexpected decency in Silicon valley
JAN WOOLF doubts that soft-core musical is the best way to transmit an important story of heroism and resistance
Goethe: His Faustian Life
AN Wilson, Bloomsbury, £25
AFTER their detailed and in-depth research, biographers may well end up either loving or loathing their subject. There can be no doubt that AN Wilson has great affection for a man he believes a genius and one of the most remarkable figures in modern history, although the character the reader will meet is not one who emerges as altogether admirable.
Like most biographers, Wilson discovers the figure he is looking for. His study presents an “exquisite lyricist, passionate scientist, soulful lover, conservative statesman, [who was] also a wild man, obscene and out of control, foul mouthed, coarse and alcohol fuelled.”
It would not be unfair to suggest that “the prodigious size of the literary output” of this poet and novelist, playwright, scientist, philosopher and even psychologist, who has the kind of standing in Germany that Pushkin has in Russia or Shakespeare in England, is virtually unknown to British readers.
More from this author
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
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GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
GORDON PARSONS recommends a fine introduction to a philosopher who, like Marx, worked to help society to reject illusion and understand the realities of the human condition
