Ralph Blumenau
Helpful votes received on reviews:
90% (5,425 of 6,054)
Location: London United Kingdom
In My Own Words:
I am a retired school teacher and now teach at the University of the Third Age in London. This is not actually a university in the normal sense, in that it has no examinations and awards no qualifications, but exists for retired people who wish to keep their minds active. I teach three courses, each one hour a week and running for about six years: on the History of Europe, on the History of Philo… Read moreI am a retired school teacher and now teach at the University of the Third Age in London. This is not actually a university in the normal sense, in that it has no examinations and awards no qualifications, but exists for retired people who wish to keep their minds active. I teach three courses, each one hour a week and running for about six years: on the History of Europe, on the History of Philosophy and on the History of the Jews. I have published a 630 page history of philosophy called 'Philosophy and Living', details of which you can see on the Amazon website.
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Reviews
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I have re-read this classic after half a century. I can't remember what I thought about it on first reading, but I find it quite disappointing now. It is true that it is well written and held my attention throughout, that it contains many philosophical ideas, about society, about relationships and about love. I don't agree with all of these - for example the way he generalizes about the differences between men and women - and I feel there is a slight pomposity in some of those philosophical passages. I am more in sympathy with Forster's dislike of German and British Imperialism, of motor cars, of restless London constantly in the throes of old houses being pulled down to be replaced by… Read more
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�Arctic Summer� is in fact the name of an incomplete novel written by E.M.Forster in 1912/13 but published only in 2003; and Galgut uses its title for his novel about the author. From the beginning it is clear that much of it is about Forster�s tormented homosexuality: how he awoke to his own homosexual feelings; how inhibited, formal and proper he was (and dependent on the conventional opinions of his mother, with whom he was living when he was in England); how it was partly love but on other occasions feelings of sheer lust; how these loving, but unconsummated relationships began with his Cambridge friend Hugh Owen Meredith, and continued with a young Indian, Syed Ross Masood whom he… Read more
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Paul Pennyfeather is one of Nature�s natural and uncomplaining victims. He is sent down from Oxford for what was done TO him by the appalling members of the Bollinger (Bullingdon) Club. Totally unqualified to teach any of the subjects required, he is taken on, via the scholastic agency Church and Gargoyle (Gabbitas and Thring), as a schoolmaster at a ropey North Wales boarding school (to which nevertheless some aristocrats and wealthy parents have sent their sons). Two of his colleagues there, Prendergast and Grimes, are pathetic failures; there is also a butler, Philbrick, on equal terms with the staff, who is an avowedly shady character and tells each of them an entirely different story… Read more
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