The Evening Colonnade

by Cyril Connolly

Critical and autobiographical essays by a noted British reviewer and literary journalist. "[Connolly] has the wonderful capacity for enthusiasm, for exciting in us his own unflagging joy in the presence of genius"(New Yorker). Index.

Genres: Essays

480 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 1973

About the author

Cyril Connolly was born in Coventry, Warwickshire in 1903. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford he was a regular contributor to the New Statesman in the 1930s.

Connolly also co-edited Horizon (1939-41) with Stephen Spender and later was literary editor of the The Observer. Books by Connolly include the novel, The Rock Pool (1938), the autobiographical, Enemies of Promise (1938) and The Unquiet Grave (1944), a collection of aphorisms, reflections and essays.

After the Second World War Connolly was the principal book reviewer of the Sunday Times. He also published several other books including The Condemned Playground (1945), Previous Convictions (1963) and the Modern Movement (1965). Cyril Connolly died in 1974.

Reviews

[James Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essay my favourite form. A positive plethora here exhibited, from topic days at Oxford to the virtue of de Sade, from knowing Orwell to discovering oneself.

Long known of Mr. Connolly, though never read his word. He belonged to a great time. I am enjoying his descriptive countenance with Andre Gide, the latter of whom I am also currently attempting to grapple. Most fantastic, as might then have been said!

[Aggrey Odera · Rating 2 out of 5]

Connolly was a gifted writer, but here you have him in decline and decay (“The Evening Colonnade” is appropriately titled: it's the Critic in Winter). Memory, rather than keen observation, is what’s operative in this book. But where criticism is concerned, the warmth of nostalgia is hardly a sufficient substitute for acuity. Connolly here writes not of traveling to Provence but of having traveled to Provence; gives us not a portrait of Evelyn Waugh but a bland tale about having known him. It’s a book by an old man looking back. I’m happy for him, but there’s nothing for me here.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of his late publications: short essays, hackwork and reviews. But Connolly is a writer whose style and humanity overcome everything. Even when tired he is so original and funny that it does not matter. A book to re-read when you want to be a writer. Not a novelist or a poet but a writer of anything else.