Kermode

[William Ryan]

  Smart yes, University of Liverpool yes, English no. Kermode was born 
and bred in the Isle of Man. His name is Manx, derived from Mac Diarmid. 
The Manxmen I know regard him with some pride. And this from a McLean?

Liam O Riain

On 19/08/2010 18:12, Hugh McLean wrote:
> There is a good obit on Kermode in the NY Times today. It says that 
> while attending the University of Liverpool he learned to read Greek, 
> Latin, French, German and Italian with ease. Does anyone know whether 
> that is true? Was the secret just being terribly smart, as everyone 
> admits he was? He had no foreign languages in his background; his 
> parents were lower-class English.
>> Literary critic Frank Kermode, who "combined an eminent scholarly 
>> career with popular success," died Tuesday, the 
>> Guardian<http://news.shelf-awareness.com/ct.jsp?uz3716000Biz9928918> 
>> reported. He was 90.
>>
>> "He's probably the greatest literary conversationalist I've ever 
>> known--it wasn't just the lectures and the monographs and the books, 
>> it's the fact that just talking about a writer he'd say incredibly 
>> pithy, intelligent things which would prompt you to go and read them 
>> again," said Alan Samson, Kermode's publisher at Weidenfeld & 
>> Nicolson. "He knew he had exceptional gifts, but there was a modest 
>> manner about him. He knew he was smarter than everyone else, but he 
>> was this pipe-smoking, beguiling man who listened to what you had to 
>> say.... It's the wreath of pipe smoke, and the benign smile and 
>> wisdom, which I'm really going to miss."
>>
>> The late John Updike praised Kermode's gifts as a reviewer, noting 
>> that his conclusions seem "inarguable--indeed just what we would have 
>> argued, had we troubled to know all that, or goaded ourselves to read 
>> this closely," and Philip Roth admitted that although he dislikes 
>> reading reviews, "if Frank Kermode reviewed my book I would read it," 
>> the Guardian wrote.
>>
>>
>>
>> Russell Scott Valentino
>> Professor and Chair
>> Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature
>> Editor, The Iowa Review
>> University of Iowa
>> tel. 319-335-2827
>>
>>
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