J. Enoch Powell
Naming the 'two best books' of a year is an intolerably pretentious proceeding. What I can do without bad conscience is to men- tion the two books which have proved the biggest eye-openers to me personally in 1987. They are an ill-assorted couple.
One was The Earliest English Brasses: Patronage, Style and Workshops, 12 70- 1350, edited by John Coates, printed by the Invicta Press, Ashford, for the Monumental Brass Society, for which I paid £12.95. In the brasses of our English churches — England is ten times better endowed than all the rest of Europe put together — one enters a wonder-world where the frontiers of technology, art, politics and piety meet. It is a world no farther off than a few miles from where almost anybody lives, provided a bunch of explanatory keys is carried. This book now dangles on my ring.
The other 'best' was acquired involun- tarily and read unintentionally; but after the first page I could not escape until the last. It too discloses a wonder-world, but one that no longer exists. Ronald Hunt- ford's biography, Shackleton (Hodder & Stoughton, £19.95), is a poignant reminder of how polar exploration thrilled and hypnotised the world that came to an end in 1914. Like early cinematograph news- reels, it has the power to enthrall and astonish; but will the charm work on those whom later human achievement has made blasé?
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