Some Sort Of Genius

by Paul O'Keefe

"A man of undoubted genius," T.S. Eliot said of painter and draughtsman, novelist, satirist, pamphleteer and critic, Wyndham Lewis. He launched the only 20th century English avante garde movement, Vorticism, in 1914. His first novel, Tarr, was published in 1918. As an artillery officer at the third battle of Ypres, he gained his political education "under fire." His anti-war books of the 1930s argued against a war-mongering left-wing orthodoxy, presenting the case for the right. This made him look, uncomfortably, like a Nazi sympathizer. His reputation never recovered. However, after WW2, spent in penniless and bitter exile in Canada, he returned to London and received some recognition at last but it coincided, tragically, with the realization that he was going blind.

Genres: Biography

356 pages, Hardcover

First published July 25, 2000

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impeccably researched. WL was an utter bastard. But the question looms throughout of how different he and his work would've been in conditions other than a precipitous lifelong poverty.

[Paul Howlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great study of a life of one who was pretty ruthless and unscrupulous but who was nevertheless gifted and who livied through an amazing moment for the arts among interesting people .