Reviews and essays by Robert Fay.
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William Giraldi: Tough-Love Critic
A new essay or book review by critic William Giraldi has become something of an event. In a world where bloggers discuss how they “feel” about a book, and the online literati praise every new novel as if it were Ulysses, Giraldi has become the adult in the room, reminding us what true criticism can…
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Javier Marias Turns Down Literary Prize
Spanish novelist Javier Marias has turned down a €20,000 literary prize from the Spanish government.
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Javier Marias’ ‘Your Face Tomorrow’ Trilogy
I have begun re-reading the novel Fever and Spear by the Spanish novelist Javier Marias. It is the first volume in his Your Face Tomorrow trilogy that is published in the U.S. by New Directions. Bookworm host Michael Silverblatt said the books were what detective novels would sound like if Henry James had written them. Marias’…
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Henry James Meets Proust’s Characters
One of the pleasures of reading literary biographies is learning what happened when famous “writer A” met famous “writer B” for the first time. Some of the great encounters are a young James Joyce meeting W.B. Yeats (or later Samuel Beckett meeting Joyce), Oscar Wilde hiding in the Proust family bathroom, because Marcel was late, and Wilde couldn’t deal with…
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Interview with New Henry James Biographer
Henry James is the novelist whose writing straddles two centuries as well as two continents. He was an American by birth, English by residence and a European in his sensibilities. It’s generally agreed that the definitive James biography is Leon Edel’s five-volume work (I myself have the one-volume abridged version, fearing I might miss out on an entire…
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