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Newest Autobiography Reviews (view source)
Revision as of 13:33, 11 April 2011
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==Autobiography==
{{newreview
|author=Isaiah Berlin
|title=Enlightening: Letters 1946 - 1960
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Isaiah Berlin wrote in tribute to the memory of Dorothy de Rothschild of her personality, '…overwhelming charm, great dignity, a very lively sense of humour, pleasure in the oddities of life, an unconquerable vitality and a kind of eternal youth and an eager responsiveness to all that passed…' Reading this second volume of letters, now available in paperback, covering Berlin's most creative period, these same characteristics might be aptly applied to Sir Isaiah himself. However, as this most self-aware of intellectuals recognised, his loquacity and compulsive socialising were driven by a persistent need to escape a sense of unreality, an inner void. In these letters he writes, 'my quest for gaiety is a perpetual defence against the extreme sense of the abyss by which I have been affected ever since I can remember myself…'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844138348</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bill Larkworthy