First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

5 Responses

1. Tim & Xiao Xiao Wood says:

   March 3, 2008 at 10:58 pm

   Dear Sir:

   Memoirs are notoriously difficult to write. When my partner Xiao-Xiao sits down to write a memoir of China as it was, under the Party, it will not be easy. Few remember the rumpus that Alan Clark caused to two lovely, genteel South African ladies when he styled them as a couple of witches in his memoir.

   The challenge of the memoir is to make it more than an exercise in personal indulgence and misty-eyed sublimation with oceans of space given up to epic reverie, but rather it must be a firm and painful grasping of the hard nettles of honesty without giving too much offence to others. Not an easy thing to do.

   Tim and Xiao Xiao Wood
2. Meta-crit on Monday » mul-timedi-a.info says:

   March 4, 2008 at 12:16 pm

   [...] Seine CD-Veröffentlichungen wurden von der Presse wegen ihrer ausgefeilten Kompositionen und deren brillanter Umsetzung euphorisch gefeiert. Junge deutsche Kreateure wie Markus Lupfer oder Bernhard Willhelm und Dirk Schönberger haben sich ihren Platz in London bzw. Antwerpen und Paris erobert. Die Inszenierungen versuchen Mozart an unsere Gegenwart heranzurücken, Tom Chatfield: [...]
3. james wood says:

   March 6, 2008 at 11:50 pm

   How come Tom Chatfield thought so highly of my book a few weeks ago in Prospect’s blog (”pleasingly self-effacing,” “Wood is a rare beast” etc etc) and now calls Peter Kemp’s review of my book “delightfully withering”? I know that English journalism is famously amoral, but this is eccentric, even by those low standards.
   –James Wood
4. Tom Chatfield says:

   March 7, 2008 at 2:36 am

   My apologies for the confusion and any resulting offence/doublethink, James. I enjoyed and admired the book greatly, as one does a fine work of criticism; I enjoyed the review (guiltily) as one does a witty, if ultimately unfair, hatchet job.

   They’re rather different kinds of pleasure, of course, but I had hoped my notes on Kemp’s use of metaphor coupled with a light tone left room for both on this blog. Evidently my tongue was not quite firmly enough in my cheek on monday morning.
5. james wood says:

   March 7, 2008 at 4:14 pm

   Tom
   What a very gracious response, and please excuse my own pettiness. One shouldn’t trawl the net while awash in self-pity. If your tongue was not firmly enough lodged in your cheek, then my foot was a little too firmly lodged in my mouth (and perhaps my head too firmly lodged up my arse — but let’s not give Peter Kemp any further cause for analysis of my metaphors!)
   Best wishes
   james wood