To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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A great deal of didactic writing
JAN WOOLF reviews the latest title from the 'chronicler of muddle England'
Ian McEwan at Fronteiras do Pensamento (Frontiers of Thought), Porto Alegre October 2016
[Fronteiras do Pensamento/CC]
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
Lessons
by Ian McEwan
Jonathan Cape £20
LESSONS is a long novel for Ian McEwan (now 74) and it’s interesting for fellow British boomers to join central character Roland Baines on his journey through postwar childhood, 1960s boarding school, relationships, parenthood, through to old age and Covid-19 — yet struggling to find a meaningful life (Roland, not the reader).
It is also a tale of sexual abuse and emotional abandonment. A sadistic, emotionally unstable piano teacher at Roland’s boarding school seduces him – later inviting him to her cottage nearby.
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