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Ticks and Crosses

Personal Terms IV

Frederic Raphael

Ticks and Crosses: Personal Terms IV by Frederic Raphael
10% off eBook (EPUB)
Series: Personal Terms
Categories: 20th Century, 21st Century, Film, Memoirs
Imprint: Lives and Letters
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE!
(Pub. Jun 2013)
9781847777478
£9.95 £8.96
Paperback (224 pages)
(Pub. Nov 2008)
9781857549300
Out of Stock
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  • Reviews
  • 10.2.77: MGM and Scorsese... have decided to hire another writer... I knew from the very first meeting that Scorsese and his gang were not for me. He sat and sniffed his benzedrine, a gasping, electric dwarf. The idea of our collaboration was as ridiculous as the mating of a poodle and a Great Dane.

    22.2.77: LA has no nascent spring; Persephone lounges in her patio while contract gardeners supply her blooms. The only noticeable Fall is of deciduous executives...
    The fourth volume of Frederic Raphael's notebooks, Ticks and Crosses covers the years 1976 to 1978 with the sharp wit and provocative intelligence that made the earlier books an acclaimed success. Raphael observes the inner workings of film studios with the cool acuity of a classicist; he records his thinking on philosophy, Jewishness, and Greece ancient and modern, with the tough irreverence of a Hollywood operator. Among the pleasures of Ticks and Crosses are an account of a farcical summer afternoon spent floating down a French river on a lilo in the company of Shirley Williams; an alarming trip up the wrong (and by no means dormant) volcano in Guatemala; meeting Nabokov; taking part in Any Questions with Enoch Powell... The eminent are caught off-guard; aphorisms sparkle, and throughout, Raphael's love of French life and culture, his delight in the human comedy of social life, illuminate his unfolding chronicle.

    Cover painting by Sarah Raphael, copyright the Estate of Sarah Raphael, 2008. Cover design by StephenRaw.com.

    Contents

    Introduction  

    1976  
    1977   
    1978   

    Index   
    Frederic Raphael was born in Chicago in 1931 and educated at Charterhouse and St John’s College, Cambridge. His novels include The Glittering Prizes (1976), A Double Life (1993), Coast to Coast (1998) and Fame and Fortune (2007); he has also written short stories and biographies of Somerset Maugham and Byron. Frederic ... read more
    Praise for Frederic Raphael 'Frederic Raphael leaves unlocked a virtual postbox of unsent letters. Insistently addressing "you", the real subject is "I". He beards old friends, family, collaborators and antagonists; settling scores; mentioning his Oscar once or twice; allowing his wit free rein.'
    Brian Morton, The Tablet
    'This book contains tremendous erudition and intelligence, blistering scorn for mediocrities and frauds, tenderness for a few favourites and irony at its most shapely and elegant.'
    Richard Davenport-Hines, Literary Review
    'Raphael's intelligence and acerbic wit are undiminished... Whether you've lived through most of the years covered in Last Post or not you'll be bound to find these letters to the dead who cannot answer back immensely entertaining.'
    Brian Martin, The Spectator
    'A hilarious and disillusioned page-turner.'
    Peter Green, The TLS
     'Against the Stream offers many insights into Raphael's "double life". An American who made his career in Britain. A Jew who went to Charterhouse and Cambridge. A Hollywood script-doctor who read Ancient Greek for fun. Vain, sharp-tongued, but the sort of truth-teller Britain needed then and needs now.'
    David Herman, Standpoint

      'In these notebooks, Raphael shows himself alert to every vanity but his own, a shortcoming that, far from repelling a reader, becomes part and parcel of the their fascination. He is one of those writers who most reveals himself in his acerbic anatomy of others.'
    Anthony Quinn, Telegraph
       'Aphoristic, lapidary and sumptuously reflective by turns, Personal Terms is a joy to read both for Raphael's prose and mental powers. It is a book of iridescent intelligence, seductive charm, urbane temper and unflagging delight - indeed a minor masterpiece.'
    Times Literary Supplement

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