![]() ![]() ![]() A gunshot rings out through the dark night. Only this time, the angst-ridden, star-crossed characters are named Thomas Mann, Arnold Schoenberg and Karl Kraus, Virginia Woolf, Alma Mahler and Lou Andreas-Salom é, Pablo Picasso, Arthur Schnitzler and Marcel Duchamp. Rather than producing an earnest scholarly book about 1913 - the year of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way” and the Armory Show in New York - Florian Illies instead presents modernism’s birth as a sexy, comic and occasionally heartbreaking soap opera. The word “Gift” means poison in German, but “ 1913: The Year Before the Storm” is anything but that: It’s an utterly delicious treat or an ideal present for anyone even mildly interested in 20th-century art, music and literature. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() Once again, he elected not to give the jumped-up dandy the shoeing he so richly deserved, allowing the frenzied Lascelles to concentrate on butchering his face while he used his pickpocketing skills to recover the missing digit and head off to carry out Strange’s instructions – effectively tendering his resignation from Norrell’s service while he was at it. The tables turned superbly, Childermass revelling in dubbing him “bloody useless”, before exposing his wretched subterfuge with his trusty Cards of Marseille. A murderous bastard, in fact, shooting the pitiful Drawlight in the back as he fled with Lady Pole’s finger tucked in his pocket. ![]() Lascelles’ true colours finally emerged, showing him to be most thorough and comprehensive of bastards. ![]() ![]() and ready to make good on every promise Maddie never expected to keep. He's wounded, jaded, in possession of her letters. She was certain to be a dismal failure on the London marriage mart. The real Captain Logan MacKenzie arrives-handsome as anything, but not entirely honorable. On the cusp of her first London season, Miss Madeline Gracechurch was shy, pretty, and talented with a drawing pencil, but hopelessly awkward with gentlemen. Until years later, when this kilted Highland lover of her imaginings shows up in the flesh. and by pretending to be devastated when he was (not really) killed in battle, she managed to avoid the pressures of London society entirely. Maddie poured her heart into writing the imaginary Captain MacKenzie. Certain to be a failure on the marriage mart, Maddie did what generations of shy, awkward young ladies have done: she invented a sweetheart.Ī Scottish sweetheart who was handsome, honorable, and de-voted to her, but conveniently never around. On the cusp of her first London season, Miss Madeline Gracechurch was shy, pretty, and talented with a drawing pencil, but hopelessly awkward with gentlemen. ![]() |