Word: ackroyd
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...canon of classic whodunits, Agatha Christie's Ackroyd holds a revered but controversial place. A unique work (for reasons that can't be revealed without spoiling the fun), its very nature resists adaptation. Alas, A&E--whose mystery series has an uneven track record in capturing the tart Christie flavor--has obliterated Ackroyd's outrageous ingenuity. Though David Suchet, as always, nicely embodies sleuth Hercule Poirot, the movie will disappoint those who've read the book. Those who haven't will wonder what the fuss has always been about. Skip the movie, read the book...
...Ackroyd endows Plato with several intriguing complexities, including, literally, a Soul with whom he converses. He senses that many of his historical judgments are mistaken and asks his Soul to tell him what the past was really like. Soul refuses: "I am not permitted to dwell on such things. You are becoming. I am being. There is a difference...
Perhaps only true sci-fi fans can pick up a book and note, without yelping in protest, that it takes place in roughly A.D. 3705. Yet Peter Ackroyd's The Plato Papers (Doubleday; 173 pages; $19.95) offers just such a leap forward in time with almost no accompanying science or fiction, at least in the sense of narrative exposition and descriptions of characters and settings. So what is Ackroyd, a prolific British biographer and novelist (The Life of Thomas More, English Music...
...with Plato's Republic will note with interest that the destination of this journey is a vast cave.) The tales Plato tells on his return do not sit well with the governing authorities, and Plato meets a Socratic fate, put on trial for corrupting the young. By this point, Ackroyd's lively tale has shaded into an invigorating meditation on the changelessness, after no matter how many eons, of human nature and its uneasiness with the unfamiliar...
...your story on Peter Ackroyd's biography of Thomas More [HISTORY, Dec. 7], you mentioned his next book, a biography of the City of London. Ackroyd referred to London as an "ugly, vandalized city." But every true Londoner thinks his city "more fair," with a "mighty heart," as did the poet Wordsworth when he crossed Westminster Bridge one morning in the 19th century. Seeing "ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples, all bright and glittering in the smokeless air," he thought it "a sight touching in its majesty." Londoners are so friendly, with a great sense of humor. They didn...