Kermode

[Hugh McLean]

Thanks for the illumination. I am afraid my Celtic twilight has long 
since faded into darkness.
>  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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