MARY CONWAY applauds the revival of a tense, and extremely funny, study of men, money and playing cards
Not so enlightened
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by perception of Enlightenment thinkers of the imperialist, colonialist, racist and capitalist nature of their times
The 21 Girondins including Jacques Pierre Brissot, condemned to the guillotine in their prison at the Conciergerie, 30 October 1793. The body of Charles Eleonor Dufriche-Valaze, who stabbed himself in the courtroom, is in the foreground. Painted by François Flameng, lithograph by Eugene Gaujean, 1879
MEHDI ACHOUCHE explores the constant fascination of cinema with Marxist alienation from Fritz Lang and Chaplin to Bong Joon Ho
FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
The End of Enlightenment: Empire, Commerce, Crisis
Richard Whatmore
Penguin, £30
PROFESSOR Richard Whatmore, co-director of St Andrews University’s Institute of Intellectual History, believes that studying the ideas in action of influential figures of the past can lead to our understanding of how we might react to the problems of the present.
Here, he re-examines what he sees as the end of that period in the 17th and 18th centuries called the Enlightenment, which saw mankind escape from the stranglehold of religion and superstition and turn to science and reason.
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
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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
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