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To: x
Thanks for the head's up. Right now I am reading his book "After the Victorians", and I must confess it's one of the most peculiar books I have read in some time. Reading it is like eating cold popcorn. You don't really like it, but you find yourself reaching for more.

That's why I was on Amazon, to look up some of the other things he had written. And, yes, I saw he did the piece (or should I say "a number"?) on C.S. Lewis. The reader/reviewers had their coup knives out, that's for sure.

Also, thanks to one and all for suggestion on other books on this subject. I know I need to start reading more "Bible-as-History" type books...hence my post.

9 posted on 07/08/2008 1:52:36 PM PDT by yankeedame ("Oh, I can take it but I'd much rather dish it out.")
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To: yankeedame
Right now I am reading his book "After the Victorians", and I must confess it's one of the most peculiar books I have read in some time. Reading it is like eating cold popcorn. You don't really like it, but you find yourself reaching for more.

Wilson's probably at his best dealing with individual psychology -- what makes a person tick. He's a novelist, so that comes naturally to him.

When he has a big idea or theme to develop he doesn't always put things together in the most convincing way. The parts add up to more than the whole, that's to say, the portraits of writers or thinkers or politicians are more convincing than the big picture argument.

So biography is his strength, rather than history. My recollection of one of his history books is that it started well, with vivid pictures of what people were going through, and just sort of petered out towards the end.

In the Eighties, Wilson had a reputation as a young fogy -- an English conservative, which can be very different from the American version (Tony Blair was more of a friend to the Bush Administration than some British Tories, for example).

10 posted on 07/08/2008 2:36:27 PM PDT by x
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