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Home>>Books>>The Metropolitan Critic

The Metropolitan Critic

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My first book, The Metropolitan Critic was published in 1974 by Faber & Faber. There was only ever a hardback. A second edition, with a new Foreword and postscripts to the essays, was published by Jonathan Cape in hardback in 1994, and was followed up in 1995 by a Picador paperback. Julian Barnes used to make jokes about how the original edition had two photographs of me on the jacket. The second edition had four of them.

​A postscript about postscripts: Though it attracted some kind reviews, the first edition of The Metropolitan Critic eventually seemed embarrassingly exuberant even to the man who had written it. When I reissued the book twenty years later, I attached postscripts to some of the pieces, rather than try to cheat time by toning down their style and updating their conclusions. In this, the ultimate stage of retrieval, these postscripts are retained, but so, once again, are all the original excesses. For someone who so clearly fancied himself in the book's title role, I certainly didn't set much store by a sober demeanour. Too late, and too dishonest, to try fixing that now.

Extracts

Due to the length of these extracts - clicking on an extract will download a file containing the text
  • The Metropolitan Critic
  • Big Medicine
  • ​When the Gloves are Off

Contents

Foreword
Part One: TWO EXTRAMURAL MINDS
1. The Metropolitan Critic
2. Big Medicine

Part Two: SOME OF THE POETS
3. When theGloves are Off
4. Everything's Rainbow
5. Settling for Dust
6. Two Essays on John Berryman
7. Two Essays on Theodore Roethke
8. An Instrument to measure Spring With
9. Keyes and Douglas
10. Sniper-Style
11. A Reason for Translation
12. Augustan Wattle
13. Seamus Heaney
14. The Wheeze Incarnadined

Part Three: CARRY THAT WEIGHT
15. Roy Fuler's Magisterial Thumb
16. Love, Help and the Performing Self
17. F. R. Leavis in America

Part Four: PAST MASTERS
18. D. H. Lawrence in transit
19. The Perpetual Promise of James Agee
20. A Dinosaur at Sunset
21. The Last Amateur

Part Five: CLERICAL TREASON
22. Cuter than a Cub Koala: Ricard Neville's Play Power
23. After the Oz Trial
24 Another Dreamer
25. The Green American
26. Getting Married Later
27. An Absolute Lady
28. Aquarius, Prisoner of Sex
29. Speed Writes: Tom Wolfe's The Mid-Atlantic Man
30. A Whole Gang of Noise
31. Rough Beast
32. He Didn't Stifle
33. The New Lost
34. The Fascist Intellectuals

Part Six: FROM THE LARGEST ISLAND
35. Tell England: or, In the Penal Colony
36. A Poor Report on Violence
37. Supplementary Viewpoints


Reviews

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  • Home
    • Archive
  • Author
    • Profiles >
      • The Texture of Reality
  • Books
    • The Fire Of Joy
    • Unreliable Memoirs
    • Falling Towards England
    • May Week Was In June
    • North Face of Soho
    • The Blaze of Obscurity
    • Latest Readings
    • Cultural Amnesia
    • Play All
    • A Point Of View
    • Flying Visits
  • Essays
    • Visions Before Midnight
    • The Crystal Bucket
    • Glued To The Box
    • The Metropolitan Critic
    • At the Pillars of Hercules
    • As of This Writing
    • The Meaning of Recognition >
      • Introduction
      • Polanski and the Pianist
      • Fantasy in the West Wing
      • Pushkin's Deadly Gift
      • Great Sopranos of Our Time
      • A Memory Called Malouf
      • Bing Crosby's Hidden Art
      • Larkin Treads the Boards
      • The Iron Capital of Bruno Schulz
      • Criticism a la Frank Kermode
      • Fast Talking Dames
      • Rough Guides to Shakespeare
      • General Election Sequence 2001
      • Primo Levi and the Painted Veil
      • A Big Boutique of Australian Essays
      • Cyrano on the Scaffold
      • A Nightclub in Bali
      • Aldous Huxley Then and Now
      • A Man Called Peter Porter
      • Philip Roth's Alternative America
      • The Miraculous Vineyard of Australian Poetry
      • Save Us From Celebrity
    • The Revolt of the Pendulum >
      • The Question of Karl Kraus
      • John Bayley's Daily Bread
      • Kingsley and the Women
      • Canetti Man of Mystery
      • Camille Paglia Burns for Poetry
      • The Guidebook Detectives
      • Zuckerman Uncorked
      • The Flight from the Destroyer
      • Saying Famous Things
      • Insult to the Language
      • The Perfectly Bad Sentence
      • Happiness Writes White
      • All Stalkers Kill
      • Best Eaten Cold
      • White Shorts of Leni Reifenstahl
      • Made in Britain, More or Less
      • Movie Criticism in America
      • Show Me the Horror
      • The Measure of A.D. Hope
      • Robert Hughes Remembers
      • Modern Australian Painting
      • On Diamond Jim McClelland
      • The Voice of John Anderson
      • Niki Lauda Wins Going Slowly
      • Damon Hill's Bravest Day
      • Jonathan James-Moore
      • Ian Adam
      • Pat Kavanagh
      • Starting with Sludge
    • Guest Writers >
      • Zoe Williams
      • Russell Davies
      • Bryan Appleyard
      • Marina Hyde
      • Bruce Beresford
      • Michael Frayn
  • Poetry
    • Poetry Collections >
      • Injury Time
      • Sentenced to Life >
        • Japanese Maple
        • Sentenced to Life
        • Procedure for Disposal
        • Leçons des ténèbres
        • Driftwood Houses
        • Event Horizon
        • Neuland
        • Echo Point
        • Change of Domicile
        • Holding Court
        • Too Much Light
        • Nature Programme
        • My Latest Fever
        • Nina Kogan's Geometrical Heaven
        • The Emperor's Last Words
        • Winter Plums
      • Nefertiti in the Flak Tower >
        • Whitman and the Moth
        • The Falcon Growing Old
      • Angels over Elsinore
      • The Book of My Enemy >
        • Recent Verse
        • Verse Letters
      • Opal Sunset
      • Other Passports >
        • Recent Verse >
          • The Book of My Enemy has been Remaindered
        • Parodies etc.
        • Earlier Verse
        • Verse Diaries
      • Fan Mail >
        • To Russell Davies: a letter from Cardiff
        • To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis
        • To Pete Atkin: a letter from Paris
        • To Prue Shaw: a letter from Cambridge
        • To Tom Stoppard: a letter from London
        • To Peter Porter: a letter to Sydney
    • Epic Poems >
      • The River in the Sky
      • Gate of Lilacs
      • The Divine Comedy >
        • Hell - Cantos 1-3
        • Purgatory - Cantos 1-3
        • Heaven - Cantos 1-3
      • Poem of the Year
    • Books About Poetry >
      • Somewhere Becoming Rain
      • Poetry Notebook >
        • Listening for the Flavour
        • Five Favourite Poetry Books
        • Velvet Shackles
        • Meeting MacNiece
        • The Donaghy Negotiation
    • Poetry Readings
    • Articles on Poetry
    • Back from The Web
    • Guest Poets >
      • Daniel Brown
      • Liane Strauss
      • Les Murray
      • Peter Porter
      • Alan Jenkins
      • Stephen Edgar
      • John Stammers
      • Simon Barraclough
      • Isobel Dixon
      • Christian Wiman
      • Olivia Cole
      • Judith Beveridge
      • Peter Goldsworthy
      • Kapka Kassabova
  • Lyrics
    • My life in lyrics
    • Selected Song Lyrics >
      • Dancing Master
      • Faded Mansion
      • Have You got a Biro I can Borrow?
      • I Have to Learn to Live Alone Again
      • Hill of Little Shoes
      • History & Geography
      • I See the Joker
      • Laughing Boy
      • My Brother's Keeper
      • National Steel
      • Nothing Left to Say
      • Sessionman's Blues
      • Song for Rita
      • Stranger in Town
      • Sunlight Gate
      • The Egoist
      • The Eye of the Universe
      • The Ice Cream Man
      • Femme Fatale
      • The Master of the Revels
      • Thirty-year Man
      • Winter Spring
  • Video
    • Talking in the Library >
      • Series One
      • Series Two
      • Series Three
      • Series Four
      • Series Five
    • Postcards
    • CJ on YouTube
  • Radio
    • A Point Of View
    • Book Talk