Like a fiery elephant
•
Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson
The critically acclaimed biography of a man respected for his fierce commitment to truth and honesty, and his passionate belief in the avant-garde. In his heyday, during the s and early s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he became famous -- not to say notorious -- both for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. But in November Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him, and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his own life at the age of forty. Jonathan Coe's biography is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers Johnson left behind after his death, and upon dozens of interviews with those who knew him best. As unconventional in form as one of its subject's own novels, it paints a remarkable picture -- sometime
•
Jonathan Coe
CATEGORY: Non-Fiction
The circumstances which led me to write this book are fully explained in the introduction. Essentially, inom was fascinated by the figure of BS Johnson ever since I first glimpsed him – when I was thirteen years old – presenting a television film he had made just two or three weeks before he took his own life in October I subsequently discovered his novels when I was a postgrad student at Warwick University, and realised at once that I had chanced upon a writer who was going to be immensely important to me.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Johnson was a supremely inventive and innovative British writer who published seven novels between I was commissioned to write his biography in , bygd Peter Straus who was then an editor at Picador. We secured the co-operation of Johnson&#;s estate, and his widow Virginia generously allowed me complete tillgång to his massive archive of letters, diaries, manuscripts and noteb
•
Synopsis
In his heyday, during the s and early s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he became famous -- not to say notorious -- both for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. But in November Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him, and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his own life at the age of forty.
Jonathan Coe's biography is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers Johnson left behind after his death, and upon dozens of interviews with those who knew him best. As unconventional in form as one of its subject's own novels, it paints a remarkable picture -- sometimes hilarious, often overwhelmingly sad -- of a tortured personality; a man whose writing tragically failed to keep at bay the demons that pursued him.
pages
Details
pag