Geoff Dyer savages Julian Barnes
It was something of a surprise that the Man Booker-winning Julian Barnes missed out on the Costa novel prize, announced last night. But maybe the Costa judges read Geoff Dyer's startling and damning assessment of Barnes's The Sense of an Ending: the two writers are, presumably, not Christmas card exchangers.
Writing in the New York Times under the heading Julian Barnes and the Diminishing of the English Novel, Dyer skewers Barnes's book. Its main character, boring arts administrator Tony Webster, is a man who seems to spend his life just not getting it. "My feelings exactly," Dyer writes. "I didn't get the book when I first read it. I still didn't get it when I reread it ... To me, there seemed less to get second time around. If such a thing is possible, I didn't get it even more than I hadn't got it first time around."
But Dyer's criticism goes deeper. It is contrived, he argues. But perhaps most damningly of all, Dyer says the book is not terrible, "it is just so … average. It is averagely compelling (I finished it), involves an average amount of concentration and, if such a thing makes sense, is averagely well written: excellent in its averageness!"
In defence of the hedge fund knight
There's been a lot of huffing and puffing over the knighthood for Paul Ruddock because: a) he's given £500,000 to the Conservatives over the last decade; and b) he runs a hedge-fund company that made money from Northern Rock's collapse.
Maybe critics are right. Maybe it does reflect all that is rotten in the honours system. Or maybe he is getting it for the tens of millions he has given to the arts. Perhaps I'm naive but, in terms of passion and philanthropy, he does appear to be one of the good guys, having been a successful and hands-on chairman at the V&A in London since 2007. At the British Museum, where there is a medieval gallery named after him, his money made possible a major redisplay in 2009. Isn't he setting an example we wish more of the super-rich could follow?
Other less controversial arts honours include a knighthood for Antonio Pappano, the Royal Opera House's conductor turned TV presenter; a CBE for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery director James Holloway; and OBEs for Frieze art fair supremos Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover; and many more in a list that rewarded the arts well.
The mystery of St Cecilia
Over Christmas, the Guardian ran the story of Dulwich Picture Gallery's marvellously restored 17th-century painting of St Cecilia. To recap, the painting was in terrible condition and consigned to storage until a restoration funded by the Friends of DPG. It looks magnificent, but one question remains: who painted it?
The eminent art historian John Spike emails from Italy. "The extravagantly coloured and voluminous draperies point clearly enough to the painter Francesco Guarino," he says. "Guarino was a more colourful and decorative follower of the famous Massimo Stanzione." A good theory, says the gallery, although it fears the work might not be quite good enough to be a Guarino. The jury remains out.
