Books: More Warts Than a Warthog ; When a Biographer Detests His Subject, Can We Trust the Result? Paul Bailey Has His Doubts

Bailey, Paul, The Independent (London, England)

Anthony Burgess

Roger Lewis

Faber & Faber

pounds 20

418pp

"I WAS in Russia when Ernest Hemingway died," announced Anthony Burgess in 1961, not comprehending in his vanity that his whereabouts at the moment of Hemingway's decease had no relevance to the man and his books. Seven years later, when Burgess's tribute was reprinted in the collection Urgent Copy, Geoffrey Grigson quoted that absurd self-aggrandisement in a review Burgess would never forget. "I suspect this reviewer's anxiety to convince himself (perhaps more than others?) that an insatiable liking for words amounts to an ability to use them well and to distinct …

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Publication information: Article title: Books: More Warts Than a Warthog ; When a Biographer Detests His Subject, Can We Trust the Result? Paul Bailey Has His Doubts. Contributors: Bailey, Paul - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: November 2, 2002. Page number: 45. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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