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Books of the Year
A further selection of the best and most overrated books of the year, chosen by some of The Spectator's contributors.
A. N. Wilson
For some reason clergymen who are thought to be guilty of sins of the flesh attract particular attention from humbugs and pharisees. This year there have been some nauseating examples of it in the Synod and elsewhere. It was good to read John Treherne's Dangerous Precincts (Cape, £10.95) and be reminded of the tragic case of Archdeacon Wakeford who, in 1921, was alleged to have spent the night of Good Friday with a floozy at the Bull Hotel, Peterborough. The place even has a Wakeford Suite today — so there is hope yet for some of the good men whose names have been blackened by the Sunday People and others. John Treherne shows that in spite of the claims of F. E. Smith and the rest, Wakeford was almost certainly inno- cent. He died a completely broken man, after a life of devoted and inspired service. Someone should put it in the Rev Tony Higton's Christmas stocking — unless he considers the very idea of stockings too likely to inflame feelings best kept hidden. A quite different book was William Raeper's excellent new biography of George MacDonald (Lion Books, £14.95), with its many fascinating glimpses of Mac- Donald's family life, his many children, his friendships with Lewis Carroll and Ruskin and — best of all — its exposition of MacDonald's writings. Although a small coterie of people admire Lilith and Phan- tastes it is still amazing how few have even heard of this, one of the greatest geniuses of Victorian times, or part-genius, part something almost repellent. Raeper is faithful to what is good in MacDonald and honest about what is sick and mawkish.
Talking of genius — if I am allowed a third book — you must read Humphrey Carpenter's Geniuses Together (Unwin Hyman, £12.95), a very funny account of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Co in Paris. How can they have persuaded any- one that they were considerable fig- ures? There are plenty of analagous pseuds today, but mercifully they do not congre- gate in Paris. They are much more likely to be found at the Groucho Club. That leaves the Left Bank uninfested for the rest of us.
You ask for my worst book of the year, but now that I don't review books, I find myself childishly enjoying almost every- thing I read.
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