Reviews for Portraits of the artist in contemporary fiction

The average rating for Portraits of the artist in contemporary fiction based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-01-31 00:00:00 Mark Stafford I hope this book comes on kindle eventually, I've read so many extracts online, and attempted to read the book, but it's impossible for me, even with a magnifier. It looks excellent, but I'll leave it unrated until I can read the whole.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-11-30 00:00:00 Alu Ali I loved the four volume novel of the end of British India Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott and his other novel of that time Staying On. So I was interested to find Hilary Spurling had written his biography. I guess I found the early part most interesting for the light it threw on 1920s and 30s class society in England. His falling in love with India and his refusal to become part of colonial attitudes is an interesting contrast and the foundation that eventually led to his great quartet that was made into a stellar BBC production that grabbed national attention in the UK in I guess the 1980s. This was a really interesting attempt to get inside how a writer creates a great epic novel series out of their life. Also about the problems of becoming a writer and continuing to believe you will produce a great work. Scott was not a very nice person to his family to put it mildly. A drunken verbal abuser who had a quite different persona that he faced the rest of the world with. But he had the guts to project some of his dark side onto Ronald Merrick the evil character in his quartet. Overall probably only worth reading if you have read his Raj Quartet, but if you have, worth the ride