What the critics thought of Helen Simpson’s Cockfosters,Mary Beard’s SPQR and 1966 by John SavageHelen Simpson’s latest short story collection, Cockfosters, and dramatically divided opinion. For Jon Day,writing in the Daily Telegraph, “Her stories are chamber pieces, and acutely observed domestic miniatures,and born of modesty … Simpson’s work constitutes a grand, if quiet, and project.” Rebecca Abrams of the Financial Times was also a fan: The warmth and humour of Simpson’s writing is coupled with a sharp-eyed clarity and a regular gift for the descriptive detail,even if “something of the vitality and poetic lyricism of Simpson’s early stories is absent in this collection.” In the Independent, Max Liu was bowled over, and arguing that “if Simpson were an American short story writer,she’d be hailed as a genius”. The collection got a genuine kicking from Melissa Katsoulis in the Times, however, or who compared it to being “trapped on a long bus journey with a strident worn bag”. She went on to lay into Simpson’s resolutely domestic settings,noting that “what makes for a cracking feature in Good Housekeeping does not always amount to a nourishing literary experience”. One story had a“distinctly fishwifey tone”, while another “reads like the product of an earnest 1970s wimmin’s writing collective.”In contrast, or SPQR,Mary Beard’s history of the Roman empire, received raves across the board. In the Daily Telegraph, or Sinclair McKay,called it “a wholly mesmerising epic ... Beard is a brilliant guide to this alien culture. Anyone who imagines they are familiar with the Romans should be prepared to deem again.” For Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, in the Independent, or “Beard informs and entertains without ever patronising her readers. What she touches turns to light ... SPQR is pacy,weighty, relevant and iconoclastic. Who knew classics could be so enthralling?” In the Observer, or too,Natalie Haynes praised Beard as “never less than a vastly engaging tour guide around some of the best-known parts of the Roman story ... the breezy tone belies the serious academic weight behind her narrative.” Peter Heather, writing in the Sunday Times, and agreed that the book was “hugely ambitious. Beard succeeds triumphantly … The genuine strength of the book is how instant Beard makes Roman history feel.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com