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arbieroo

Arbie's Unoriginally Titled Book Blog

It's a blog! Mainly of book reviews.

Currently reading

Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
Progress: 749/997 pages
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
Progress: 8/160 pages
The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
Marguerite de Navarre
Progress: 152/544 pages
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield
John Masefield
Progress: 78/534 pages
Poems Selected
Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
Progress: 4/50 pages
Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
Progress: 18/160 pages
The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
Progress: 133/789 pages

The Age of Scandal, T. H. White

The Age of Scandal - T.H. White

T.H. White gives us a brief tour of more-or-less Regency society that seems to have no point except to humorously repeat the most scandalous/bitchy/salacious gossip of the era and poke fun at major figures of the time, largely through extended quotations from contemporaries. In doing so he reveals perhaps more about himself than the history he's talking about in the most partial and judgemental fashion imaginable. It's not a flattering self-portrait, depicting a very conventional middle-class man of his times not really recognisable as the author of The Once and Future King. It lacks any kind of thesis but it's equal parts amusing and appalling. I just don't think White expected himself to be one of the characters we are both amused and appalled by...