It is now an archive for my newspaper and magazine pieces. My blog can now be read at: www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard
Politics, economics and culture from the master. Unmissable.
Melanie Phillips home page
Melanie Phillips' peerless blog. Read, and learn.
Daniel Finkelstein's Times Comment Central
A daily must-read.
Tim Worstall
Lots of interesting nibbles - and a ruthless swatter of economic gibberish.
Harry's Place
Must-read left of centre blog from writers who understand the threat to the West.
Clive Davis
Always interesting selection of culture and politics, from an Anglo-American bent.
Samizdata
Libertarian blog, packed every day.
Norm's blog
The thoroughly sensible thoughts of renowned left-wing academic Norman Geras, Professor of Government at Manchester. And cricket, too.
Public Interest
Peter Briffa's inimitable take on The Yazzmonster and other assorted demons.
Reform
The public sector reform group; their website is an invaluable source of data and ideas.
Centre for the New Europe
The leading European public policy think tank.
Developed by:
| September | 10 |
| 2006 |
Do read this piece by Robert Harris on the past week's events. When he wrote full-time on politics I always thought Harris was peerless. This piece shows just how good he is. I won't extract it - it's too full of good things.
To paraphrase Mrs Merton, I wonder what attracted him to the idea of switching from jobbing hackery to writing best-selling novels.
That said, I've read two of his books and thought at the end of both 'what was the point of that?'. Hours of my life wasted, never to be regained.
I will no doubt be shouted down for saying this but with a few exceptions - Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Robertson Davies, for instance - I usually find fiction a complete waste of time. I don't see the point of most of it. Not when real life is so much more complex than any novel can ever be.
(There - that'll no doubt prompt a flood of dismissive emails.)
UPDATE: Some people who look at this blog appear to be unable to read (to whit, the first two comments). Where above does it say that I despise people who read fiction, or that I think that other people shouldn't read it? I am merely pointing out that I don't usually derive much pleasure or utility from it. Similarly, I do not enjoy eating squid or see the point of it. That does not mean that I despise people who do.
It is a particularly silly non sequitur to conclude that when I point out my personal preferences I am condemning others who wish to indulge their own, legal, pleasures, which I do not happen to share. If I despise someone or something - comfortable, complacent, middle class drug takers, for instance, whose actions are inextricably bound up with the blighted lives of drug addicts on sink estates - then I say so.
The commenters have clearly been reading too much fiction!
MessageSpace
"with a few exceptions - Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Robertson Davies, for instance - I usually find fiction a complete waste of time. I don't see the point of most of it. Not when real life is so much more complex than any novel can ever be."
It has nothing to do with fiction as compared to real life any more than one would compare opera or soccer to real life within this context. The pleasures and benefits one obtains from reading are for the most part inherent in the activity. In any event, simply because one finds one activity to be more glorious and refined than others that does not mean one can studiously ignore the rest - "When every blessed thing you hold is made of silver, or of gold, You long for simple pewter."
You seem to think that if you don't finding meaning in an activity then no one should be able to. I expect you were very spoiled as an infant.
The surprise would have been if you said you enjoyed reading fiction.
The reason why some people get irritated – I only mention this because the penny still does not seem to have dropped - when you talk [with tedious regularity] about how much you despise adults who enjoy
1) Reading Harry Potter
2) Attending tennis matches
3) Going to parties on New Year’s Eve
is that you condemnation is based on nothing more than failing to derive any pleasure from these activities
i.e. it is the sort of malignant narcissim more generally associated with Leftists.
As for fiction, if you prefer to read an autobiography rather than a novel, or a newspaper rather than an epic, then you are simply exercising your freedom of choice.
"that'll no doubt prompt a flood of dismissive emails"
As the flood seems to have amounted to no more than a couple of drips, I feel obliged to contribute. Mr Pollard, I dismiss your remarks about fiction. Totally. Dismissively.
Incidentally, good choice - Tolstoy and Dostoyeksky. Though I've become quite a fan of Turgenev in more recent times: Bazarov in "Fathers and Sons" is another chronic dismissiverator.
Unless the statement “In my experience Shakespeare is a waste of time†is accompanied the admission that this is a personal failing, it may reasonably be taken to be a criticism of Shakespeare. There is no necessary connection between condemning something, and expecting [or seeking to persuade] others to agree with you, but if you were to make this link [unless otherwise directed] it would be disingenuous to claim that such a link is anything other than entirely reasonable.
"As the flood seems to have amounted to no more than a couple of drips"
The ugly Brit, the type which was hated with so much passion around the world between the two last world wars, is alive and well and his name is Bob Doney.
"Though I've become quite a fan of Turgenev in more recent times: Bazarov in "Fathers and Sons" is another chronic dismissiverator."
You are not a fan of Turgenev. Joshua is a fan of ТургеÌнев. You are merely a fan of Turgenev in translation. Consider, for example, the situation if our dear Stephen Pollard had been translated into Russian. Can you imagine how much those millions of adoring Russian readers would have missed?