Word: englishness
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With a career encompassing 25 years that included five novels, a handful of plays and thousands of drawings, paintings and sketches, why isn't Mervyn Peake a more celebrated English literary and artistic hero? A cult figure today, Peake is best known for Gormenghast, his bleak but compelling gothic fantasy trilogy published in the 1940s and '50s about the hierarchy of a fictional castle, Gormenghast, and the Machiavellian machinations of its inhabitants. But he was also an accomplished illustrator, painter and war artist. "If somebody's good at everything, then they're never taken seriously, are they?" muses Chris Beetles...
Fantasy and science fiction author Michael Moorcock, who contributes an introduction to the book, says: "Peake is in the great tradition of idiosyncratic English writers. His poetry and fiction, like theirs is sui generis and, like his drawing and painting, reveals authentic genius." Comic-book writer Alan ( Watchmen, Lost Girls) Moore calls Peake "probably one of the finest writers in the English language," but says literary snobbery that considers fantasy a lesser art form has contributed to his neglect...
Over the past year, Technorati has broadened its reach to include Chinese, Spanish and other languages. Just 38% of the 1.4 million individual blog entries each day are in English. A growing number are moving beyond text to include photos, audio and video, so Technorati provides links...
...Does age come faster, less kindly, to the English? At 49, most of the Uppers look 59. The gravity of their years (and perhaps of their celebrity) has put sag lines in their faces and slowed their steps. Their big financial moves are to secure retirement homes. They seem prepared quite early for senior citizenship...
...have no idea what small lies or significant evasions the Uppers or Apted are concealing. But I'd guess that the series gets at the larger truth of Englishness: of reticence and acceptance, of class and an easy or biting humor. "There are many things that might have happened in my life that haven't happened," Neil says, "and there is little point in being regretful and angry about it." To which an American viewer might respond, Why the hell not? And the answer, I think, is: because they're English...