"Whom the gods wish to destroy," writes Cyril Connolly, "they first call promising." First published in 1938 and long out of print, Enemies of Promise , an "inquiry into the problem of how to write a book that lasts ten years," tests the boundaries of criticism, journalism, and autobiography with the blistering prose that became Connolly's trademark. Connolly here confronts the evils of domesticity, politics, drink, and advertising as well as novelists such as Joyce, Proust, Hemingway, and Faulkner in essays that remain ...
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"Whom the gods wish to destroy," writes Cyril Connolly, "they first call promising." First published in 1938 and long out of print, Enemies of Promise , an "inquiry into the problem of how to write a book that lasts ten years," tests the boundaries of criticism, journalism, and autobiography with the blistering prose that became Connolly's trademark. Connolly here confronts the evils of domesticity, politics, drink, and advertising as well as novelists such as Joyce, Proust, Hemingway, and Faulkner in essays that remain fresh and penetrating to this day. "A fine critic, compulsive traveler, and candid autobiographer. . . . [Connolly] lays down the law for all writers who wanted to count. . . . He had imagination and decisive images flashed with the speed of wit in his mind."-V. S. Pritchett, New York Review of Books "Anyone who writes, or wants to write, will find something on just about every single page that either endorses a long-held prejudice or outrages, and that makes it a pretty compelling read. . . . You end up muttering back at just about every ornately constructed pens???e that Connolly utters, but that's one of the joys of this book."-Nick Hornby, The Believer "A remarkable book."-Anthony Powell
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Seller's Description:
Reader copy. Ex library hardback with DJ; usual stamps/markings. Published in 1973 by Andre Deutsch, London. Page edges a little grubby otherwise a good, clean copy. Ready for immediate despatch from UK. BS-2A*
Cyril Connelly's Enemies of Promise, first published in 1948, is an interesting glimpse of a learned literary comment on English and some American fiction of the early half of the 20th century. For a reader looking for insight into today's fiction, it is dated and much of it is irrelevant. Cyril Connolly was an influential, although highly opinionated, critic of his time. The book, I believe, would best serve the interests of a literary historian.
