Penfriends from Porlock - Hardcover

A. N. Wilson is the author of the acclaimed biographies Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Jesus, and Paul; God's Funeral, and several celebrated novels. He lives in London.

This collection of reprinted pieces by prolific novelist/critic Wilson, whose latest work is the much-acclaimed Tolstoy ( LJ 8/88), has something for everyone. Excellent reflections on contemporary novelists (Pym, Braine) are here alongside shrewd notes on the famous (James, Boswell) and not-so-famous (Peacock) from history. Several pieces will involve the nonliterary, including an evisceration of Cecil Beaton, a depreciation of the naive assumption that photography is automatically an art form, and a graphic meditation on death. Sharp critical insights are matched by sharp language, while quieter essays (e.g., "Philip Larkin") carry an elegiac tone. The title refers to the visitor who supposedly interrupted Coleridge's composition of "Kubla Kahn"--Wilson too sees these essays as digressions from his more serious work. Readers will be glad he digressed.
- Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
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