Since thisisthe third volume of my notebooks, itmay sound more hollow than
convincing tosay againthat I never intended topublish them.Itis, however,still true.
Notebooks arelike ahuge shadow which lengthens as you go forward, but
remains ...
Author: Frederic Raphael
Publisher: Carcanet
ISBN: 9781847777454
Category: Literary Collections
Page: 228
View: 572
DOWNLOAD →
The first volume of Frederic Raphael's notebooks, Personal Terms, was greeted in the TLS as 'a small masterpiece'. With the publication of Cuts and Bruises, the third volume, we can see the sequence unfolding into a major literary achievement. Cuts and Bruises concerns the 1970s, during which Raphael travelled widely (not least to Hollywood, which yields a mordantly sweet and sour account of figures such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and John Schlesinger) and wrote the acclaimed television series The Glittering Prizes. Raphael is only incidentally concerned with the world of the famous, though, and has little interest in 'names' and gossip except to notice the discrepancies between public and private faces and to convey the texture of life around him. Greece remains an abiding passion, and the conduct of Greek friends during the last months of the Colonel's tyranny leads to surprising reflections on exile and return. Raphael's notebooks, never intended for publication, are exercises in candour, precise observation and wit. Cuts and Bruises adds to the growing impression that Raphael is creating an engrossingly readable, stylish and enduring chronicle of his times.