In Letters of Introduction Kevin Jackson invents a new genre, the Alphabet Essay. Always inventive, scholarly and sometimes zany, Jackson approaches ten writers and two 'themes', building an alphabet around each: 'A is for' to 'Z is for'. The alphabet touches on his subjects' history, their culture, their private and intimate lives, their anxieties, and most importantly their achievement. The Alphabets are introductory and exploratory. Jackson picks his way through the worlds of Hildegard of Bingen, William Blake, Dante, Duke Ellington, Freud, Goethe, the Harlem Renaissance, Paul Klee, Friedrich Nietzsche, Surrealism, Andy Warhol and Marguerite Yourcenar. As he goes he finds out more and more, by association, through legend and gossip, in imagination. It is a wonderful process, an approach which imposes wonderful juxtapositions and elicits delicious ironies. The form is redolent of childhood, the content is remote from childish things.
In Letters of Introduction Kevin Jackson invents a new genre, the Alphabet Essay. Always inventive, scholarly and sometimes zany, Jackson approaches ten writers and two 'themes', building an alphabet around each: 'A is for' to 'Z is for'. The alphabet touches on his subjects' history, their culture, their private and intimate lives, their anxieties, and most importantly their achievement. The Alphabets are introductory and exploratory. Jackson picks his way through the worlds of Hildegard of Bingen, William Blake, Dante, Duke Ellington, Freud, Goethe, the Harlem Renaissance, Paul Klee, Friedrich Nietzsche, Surrealism, Andy Warhol and Marguerite Yourcenar. As he goes he finds out more and more, by association, through legend and gossip, in imagination. It is a wonderful process, an approach which imposes wonderful juxtapositions and elicits delicious ironies. The form is redolent of childhood, the content is remote from childish things.
A William Blake Alphabet; A Dante Alphabet; An Ellington Alphabet; A Freud Alphabet; A Goethe Alphabet; A Harlem Renaissance Alphabet; A Hildegard of Bingen Alphabet; A Paul Klee Alphabet; A Nietsche Alphabet; A Surrealist Alphabet; An Andy Warhol Alphabet; A Marguerite Yourcenar Alphabet; the end.
KEVIN JACKSON has wide experience of television and radio as producer, writer and presenter. He was associate arts editor of the Independent and is currently film critic for the Independent on Sunday and a freelance writer, broadcaster and lecturer. For Carcanet he wrote The Language of Cinema (1998) and edited The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader (1993) and Revolutionary Sonnets by Anthony Burgess (2002). He also edited The Oxford Book of Money (1995) and is currently writing a biography of Humphrey Jennings.
'A cabinet of curiosities in which every neatly lettered drawer
reveals, reflected in a tiny mirror, the talking head of the
prodigiously informed Kevin Jackson (or his smirking doppleganger,
Dr Hannibal Lecter). Skeletal, perfectly formed lecturettes forge a
secret biography of the author's obsessions: Blake, Dante, Freud. A
mad Arcimboldo project with the answer to everything. Here is the
antidote to all previous stocking-filling miscellanies. Buy one for
all your friends and enemies. And welcome to the labyrinth.' Iain
Sinclair
'This is the rare kind of book that you get fed up of quoting
(there is so much) and simply end up buying for people. Carcanet
should certainly be congratulated for publishing such a treasure
trove and Jackson ordered by higher powers to keep producing books
like it.' Mark Thwaite, ReadySteadyBook.com
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