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More Dynamite: Essays 1990-2012
More Dynamite anthologizes a wealth of essays by a writer with one of the keenest critical eyes of his generation. Craig Raine - poet, critic, novelist, Oxford don and editor - turns his fearsome and unflinching gaze on subjects ranging from Kafka to Koons, Beckett to Babel. He waxes lyrical about Ron Mueck's hyperreal sculptures and reassesses the metafiction of David Foster Wallace. For Raine, no element of cultural output is insignificant, be it cinema, fiction, poetry or installation art. Finding solace in both literature and art alike, and finding moments of truth and beauty where others had stopped looking, More Dynamite will reinvigorate readers, challenge our perceptions of the classics and wonderfully affirm our love of good writing, new and old. This extensive collection of essays is a crash course in twentieth century artistic endeavour - nothing short of a master class in high culture from one of the most discerning minds in contemporary British letters.
550 pages, Hardcover
First published December 5, 2013
2 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Craig Raine
82 books47 followersPoet and critic Craig Raine was born on 3 December 1944 in Bishop Auckland, England, and read English at Exeter College, Oxford.
He lectured at Exeter College (1971-2), Lincoln College, Oxford, (1974-5), and Christ Church, Oxford, (1976-9), and was books editor for New Review (1977-8), editor of Quarto (1979-80), and poetry editor at the New Statesman (1981). Reviews and articles from this period are collected in Haydn and the Valve Trumpet (1990). He became poetry editor at the London publishers Faber and Faber in 1981, and became a fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1991. He gained a Cholmondeley Award in 1983 and the Sunday Times Writer of the Year Award in 1998. He is founder and editor of the literary magazine Areté.
His poetry collections include the acclaimed The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), A Free Translation (1981), Rich (1984) and History: The Home Movie (1994), an epic poem that celebrates the history of his own family and that of his wife. His libretto The Electrification of the Soviet Union (1986) is based on The Last Summer, a novella by Boris Pasternak. Collected Poems 1978-1999 was published in 1999. A new long poem A la recherche du temps perdu, an elegy to a former lover, and a collection of his reviews and essays, entitled In Defence of T. S. Eliot, were both published in 2000. Another collection of essays, More Dynamite, appeared in 2013.
Craig Raine lives in Oxford. His latest books are How Snow Falls (2010), a new poetry collection; and two novels, Heartbreak (2010), and The Divine Comedy (2012).
He lectured at Exeter College (1971-2), Lincoln College, Oxford, (1974-5), and Christ Church, Oxford, (1976-9), and was books editor for New Review (1977-8), editor of Quarto (1979-80), and poetry editor at the New Statesman (1981). Reviews and articles from this period are collected in Haydn and the Valve Trumpet (1990). He became poetry editor at the London publishers Faber and Faber in 1981, and became a fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1991. He gained a Cholmondeley Award in 1983 and the Sunday Times Writer of the Year Award in 1998. He is founder and editor of the literary magazine Areté.
His poetry collections include the acclaimed The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), A Free Translation (1981), Rich (1984) and History: The Home Movie (1994), an epic poem that celebrates the history of his own family and that of his wife. His libretto The Electrification of the Soviet Union (1986) is based on The Last Summer, a novella by Boris Pasternak. Collected Poems 1978-1999 was published in 1999. A new long poem A la recherche du temps perdu, an elegy to a former lover, and a collection of his reviews and essays, entitled In Defence of T. S. Eliot, were both published in 2000. Another collection of essays, More Dynamite, appeared in 2013.
Craig Raine lives in Oxford. His latest books are How Snow Falls (2010), a new poetry collection; and two novels, Heartbreak (2010), and The Divine Comedy (2012).
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