All About Books discussion

Week 40 brings us up to 1911 and Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.

from the article:

"Zuleika Dobson is a brilliant Edwardian satire on Oxford life by one of English literature's most glittering wits that now reads as something much darker and more compelling. Readers new to Max Beerbohm's masterpiece, which is subtitled An Oxford Love Story, will find a diaphanous novel possessed of a delayed explosive charge that detonates today with surprising power.
(...)
Beerbohm was a friend and admirer of Oscar Wilde. The scintillating heartlessness of this novel is deeply Wildean in its instincts. His celebrated line "Death cancels all engagements" is pure Wilde, and Zuleika herself – selfish, vain and capricious – is a fictional cousin to Dorian Gray (No 27 in this series).
(...)
Another Edwardian, E.M. Forster, declared: "Zuleika Dobson is a highly accomplished and superbly written book whose spirit is farcical. It is a great work – the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time… So funny and charming, so iridescent and yet so profound." Later, Evelyn Waugh echoed these verdicts, writing: "Beerbohm was a genius of the purest kind. He stands at the summit of his art."

read more of the article here

and more about Max Beerbohm here

Never heard of this author (again!) but I like oscar wilde so maybe I'd like him

Heather wrote: "Never heard of this author (again!) but I like oscar wilde so maybe I'd like him"

Ditto and ditto.

I sort of heard of him but nothing more...

I read this last December & really liked it!

Decided to start it now: I've downloaded the audiobook from librivox and as soon as I finish The Red Badge of Courage I'll start this one

I've just finished reading this. I loved it. It's the funniest book I've read for ages.

Gill wrote: "I've just finished reading this. I loved it. It's the funniest book I've read for ages."

Glad to hear it Gill! ;)

Sandy wrote: "I loved the Librivox version of this book. I laughed every time I listened. What a treasure! It's too bad he only wrote one novel."

I've also lisetned to it!!