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Robert McCrum

Författare till The Story of English

25+ verk 3,825 medlemmar 59 recensioner

Om författaren

Robert McCrum is the author of Wodehouse: A Life and the Coauthor of the best-selling book and television series. The Story of English. He is the associate editor of the Observer and lives in London with his wife, Sarah Lyall.

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Kärlek i hönsgården : Roman (1906) — Inledning, vissa utgåvor614 exemplar
The English Language (1985) — Inledning, vissa utgåvor485 exemplar

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Only last 2,5 chapters deal with the current situation of English's global dominance. And that was the reason I took the book in the first place. Despite its promising name first 12,5 chapters deal largely with the history of English. Interesting read, but still not exactly what I was looking for. Those of you how like me think that Globish is a subject of the XX-XXI centuries only beware - and thus forearmed - dash straight to the last 60 something pages ;)
 
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Den85 | 10 andra recensioner | Jan 3, 2024 |
This book is best suited to researchers and truly obsessive Wodehouse fans. For those readers who have simply enjoyed a few Bertie and Jeeves or Psmith novels, this biography will be a struggle.

The problem is that PG Wodehouse was a person of rigid routine who had only a handful of interests (cricket, his old high school, pekinese dogs, and his own writing); he was also a workaholic. This makes for pretty dull reading, but the author did his best with it and managed to wring a real doorstopper out of it all. We learn how many words Wodehouse writes per day, how many words each book contains, how many words were written up in the initial plot outlines, and how many words had to be scratched out from the final copies of every book. Each year's articles, short stories, poems, Broadway show lyrics, script revisions, and books are faithfully reported. His daily routine is laid out in both short and long forms in 21 of the 26 chapters, even though this routine does not change for sixty years.

In fact, we learn a lot about the minutiae of Wodehouse's life without really learning much about the man himself. The overall picture is of a brilliant writer who saves everything for the page, leaving nothing for life itself. Affable and harmless, he comes off as rather simple-minded in this book. This last characteristic leads to the only interesting event in his life, the "Berlin Broadcasts", when he gave a series of radio broadcasts on Nazi radio during WWII. The biographer attempts to justify Wodehouse's conduct by claiming that he is "ill-equipped to deal with the challenge confronting him", and that when asked by friends-turned-Nazis to do the broadcasts Wodehouse "behaved as he always did when confronted by difficult or complex choices, which was to let others take care of the arrangements" (p. 304). For my part, I take the side of Harold Nicolson, who wrote, "I resent the theory that 'poor old P.G. is so innocent that he is not responsible'" (p. 316). It was hard to look at this episode with my modern eyes and feel anything but incredulity at Wodehouse's conduct, and rightly or not it did sour me towards him. As much as the previous chapters had been a slog, at least I was on his side. Afterwards and all throughout the rest of the book I wasn't sure if I liked him at all.
… (mer)
 
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blueskygreentrees | 8 andra recensioner | Jul 30, 2023 |
Not what I expected it to be. Sometimes a bit too long winded in explanations, but still an interesting read into our relatability to Shakespeare in the modern world; it definitely gave me something to think about, but I'm not sure if I'll ever revisit it.
 
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viiemzee | 1 annan recension | Feb 20, 2023 |
Very interesting book on how English developed over the years. The PBS series is also good.
 
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kslade | 24 andra recensioner | Dec 8, 2022 |

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Statistik

Verk
25
Även av
3
Medlemmar
3,825
Popularitet
#6,633
Betyg
3.8
Recensioner
59
ISBN
142
Språk
9

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