Richard FarrMar 27The uselessness of Eric AmblerIn the years leading up to the Second World War, Eric Ambler wrote some of the most influential thrillers ever published - more or less invented the genre, i...
Richard FarrFeb 18Kafka's progressToday's quote of the day from The Browser - which I recommend to everyone - struck a cord for me. It's a commonplace in our culture to talk of "advanced civi...
Richard FarrNov 25, 2019Italo Calvino on how to be an efficient writer“Every morning I tell myself, Today has to be productive—and then something happens that prevents me from writing. Today . . . what is there that I have to d...
Richard FarrNov 23, 2019Happy birthday George Eliot!One of the most luminous, most humane intelligences in history was born two hundred years ago today: But the effect of her being on those around her was inca...
Richard FarrNov 20, 2019Al-chemieReading all the depressing news about plastic, which has now found its way to the bottom of the Marianas Trench – I’m reminded again of a gorgeous paragraph ...
Richard FarrNov 4, 2019Macboris: a fragment from a lost play about power and nihilismDiscovered recently among the manuscripts of that great English dramatist Willie A. Peakshamers: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this Brexit p...
Richard FarrJul 27, 2019Preston Singletary at the Tacoma Glass MuseumI don’t think of myself as a glass fan, and little else here (or at Chihulymania in Seattle) does anything for me, aesthetically. But this all-glass telling ...
Richard FarrMay 1, 2019RIP Les Murray 1938-2019The brilliant old curmudgeon, Australia’s great Bard of Bunyah, is dead. I found his political, social and religious outlook by turns offensive or barely int...
Richard FarrFeb 28, 2019The brutal irony of brutalised BrutalistsIn this article in the Guardian on the subject of famous “Brutalist” buildings under threat from demolition, I note with interest and satisfaction the immine...
Richard FarrJan 11, 2019Well anyway, all ends wellThe characters’ motivations make so little sense that theories abound about missing or garbled text. And some of its faults would be easy to understand in a ...
Richard FarrDec 18, 2018Ralph and CleopatraAntony and Cleopatra in the Olivier at the National Theatre; a bracingly modern techno-thriller with executive suites, machine guns, and a cleverly-done mode...
Richard FarrMay 29, 2018Progress about ‘progress in philosophy’Philosophers are still reading Aristotle, and still arguing about whether there is free will: ergo, philosophy is useless. It has always been a popular sneer...
Richard FarrMar 29, 2018Books for Writers: “How Fiction Works”I’m re-reading the critic James Wood’s excellent, readable little book of this title. Every writer should have a copy. There’s a superb account of the way na...
Richard FarrFeb 5, 2018A taste of Los AngelesJosef Beuys, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, and Keith Haring at the Broad Museum. Street art in East LA. And mariachi players in Mariachi Plaza, Boyle Heights...
Richard FarrJan 24, 2018RIP Ursula Le GuinSuch brilliant titles! How can you not want to read a book called The Lathe of Heaven, or The Left Hand of Darkness? The stylistic and intellectual brillianc...
Richard FarrDec 20, 2017Wyeth at SAMIt’s all about the textures at the Seattle Art Museum’s brilliant 100th anniversary retrospective on Andrew Wyeth, an iconic American artist who saw early fa...
Richard FarrNov 16, 2017Great acting – and tyrannyHelping out with a high school class on dystopian lit, I came across one of the best examples of the craft I’ve seen in a long time – the Irish actor Jonjo O...
Richard FarrOct 13, 2017The best private art collection in the world?I never did write a post here about Madrid’s Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which I finally got to visit for one entire glorious day back in the spring. I just di...
Richard FarrOct 6, 2017Ishiguro: yes yes yesFilled with delight that Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nobody could have deserved it more. But I suppose I’m prejudiced: it’s just t...
Richard FarrAug 9, 2017On the corner of Kitsch and Scam …Philosopher and critic Roger Scruton, on the shocking possibility that much of the highest-profile, highest-cost modern art is the worthless scam ordinary pe...