Brigid Brophy - Böcker

'[Beardsley's] vision is permanently that of a child lying in bed watching his mother dress for a dinner-party... He is allured, yet afraid to touch: driven back on a cold minuteness of detailed attention, and yet passionately curious, with the emotional and involved curiosity children give to sex.'Brigid Brophy first published her study of 'the most intensely and electrically erotic artist in the world' in 1968, at the height of her own powers and in the moment of a notable revival of interest - both scholarly and pop-cultural (amid 'the dandified realm of Carnavy Street') - in Beardsley's work.An infant prodigy, Beardsley retained through the brief years of his adult life the peculiar genius of a precocious child, and Brophy, well-versed in Freudian analyses, adroitly points out the polymorphous perversity of his pictures - that perversity, coupled with his inimitable graphic/monochromatic signature, accounting for why Beardsley, however 'high-baroque rococo' his style, has remained endlessly modern.

The tweedy Miss Hetty Braid worships the lovely but selfish Miss Antonia Mount, her co-proprietor at the most exclusive finishing school on the French Riviera. The girls they teach are quite remarkable, though hardly in the sense of academic distinction. But trouble looms when Antonia announces that 'Royalty is coming.' The great day arrives, and though at first things go tolerably well, disaster springs from good intentions.This Faber Finds edition includes a 1987 introduction by Brigid Brophy and a new preface by Sir Peter Stothard.'A wicked little entertainment... plaubly not meant for the moralists or naive.' Evening Standard'An outrageously indelicate joke made in beautifully mannered prose.' Daily Herald'Waspish and witty.' TLS

Nancy meets Marcus at a party. He is untidy, nervous, shy: women have never paid him any attention. But here is virgin clay from which Nancy can mould her Adam. She marries him, and on their wedding night Marcus realises he is as much her protege in sex as in other fields. But soon he is confident that, under her guiding hands, he had been transformed into a consummate lover; and he begins to feel the urge to slip his leash.'Elegant, funny and erotic... a good showcase for [Brophy's] perceptions on life and art, her wit and her dazzling prose.' Telegraph'Sly and sophisticated and written in a deceptively simple manner.' Kirkus Reviews'Brophy has the enviable knack of combining precision with suggestiveness.' Saturday Review

When Anna is kissed by a mysterious stranger at a NYE masquerade ball, a dance of seduction begins.'So original and refreshing.' Hilary Mantel'Brilliantly seductive ... A witty, sexy, sophisticated treat.' Sarah Waters'Superb ... Sheer artistic insolence.' Iris Murdoch'A great novel ... A swirling, sumptuous, sensual feast.' GuardianLondon, New Year's Eve. Snow falls on a Georgian mansion, vibrating with the festivities of a masquerade ball within. Middle-aged divorcee Anna stands alone - until the clock chimes midnight and a mysterious figure kisses her on the mouth. Thus begins a dance of seduction charged by clandestine romances swirling around them, whipping the ball into an frenzy of operatic proportions - until the night climaxes, revealing unease beneath the glitter ... A scandalous sensation in 1964, Brigid Brophy's The Snow Ball is ripe to seduce a new generation of readers.'I read it in one sitting ... Wonderful!' Claire-Louise Bennett'A feminist remodelling of libertine fervour and passion.' Eley Williams'One of the wittiest British writers of the past half century ... A comet in her day.' Terry CastleWhat Readers Are Saying:An ornate masterpiece. Sensual, wicked, clever; its dark heart glittering. So pleasurable and original and weird.Takes the heady, lusty, excitement that comes with new love and mingles it with the exuberance, decadence, and hedonism of NYE ... A short swirling treat.A perfect little masterpiece, an opera in paperback ... I was seduced and I hoped and I flinched and I laughed and I admired.The lovechild of Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf: trippy and fluid, existential and erotic, funny and witty: a hedonistic comedy of manners.I think I love this crazy little book .. Super sexy ... Made me hoot out loud with glee for the language and audacity.Oh man, this was a lot of fun. Such a strong sense of intelligence and wit behind every sentence.

An eccentric professor saves a London Zoo ape from a rocket experiment in this dazzling classic by a trailblazing animal rights activist, introduced by Sarah Hall.'Pitch-perfect.' Ali Smith'So original.' Hilary Mantel'Stunning.' Isabel Waidner'There is nobody quite like her.' A.S. Byatt'Her beastly, risky best.' Eley WilliamsWhen my species has destroyed itself, we may need yours to start it all again. In London Zoo, Professor Darrylhyde is singing to the apes again. Outside their cage, he watches the two animals, longing to observe the mating ritual of this rare species. But Percy, inhibited by confinement and melancholy, is repulsing Edwina's desirous advances. Soon, the Professor's connection increases as he talks, croons, befriends - so when a scientist arrives on a secret governmental mission to launch Percy into space, he vows to secure his freedom. But when met by society's indifference, he takes matters into his own hands . . . A trailblazing animal rights campaigner, Brigid Brophy's sensational 1953 novel is as provocative and philosophical seventy years on. An electric moral fable, it is as much a blazingly satirical reflection on homo sapiens as the non-human - on our capacity for violence, red in tooth and claw, not only to other species, but our own.

Set in an airport ("one of the rare places where twentieth-century design is happy with its own style"), In Transit is a textual labyrinth centering on a contemporary traveller. Waiting for a flight, Evelyn Hillary O'Rooley suffers from uncertainty about his/her gender, provoking him/her to perform a series of unsuccessful, yet hilarious, philosophical and anatomical tests. Brigid Brophy surrounds the kernel of this plot with an unrelenting stream of puns, word games, metafictional moments and surreal situations (like a lesbian revolution in the baggage claim area) that challenge the reader's preconceptions about life and fiction and that remain endlessly entertaining.

One of the most penetrating and sympathetic explorations ever undertaken by one writer into the mind of another, Prancing Novelist is far more than a simple tribute or work of research. In these pages--by turns instructive, mischievous, and even gossipy--Brigid Brophy seeks nothing less than a vindication of the eternal liveliness of fiction itself against the persistent rumors that it is dying or dead. Though serious in intent, Prancing Novelist is not only a monument to Firbank, but is also a delightful showcase for Brophy's own uproarious prose, not to mention her genius for telling good stories.

"Was I, perhaps, castrato/a? Was the truth behind my oblivion that I had no sex?"At the airport, Pat – an Anglo-Irish character of undetermined gender at the heart of In Transit – is called to a heroic quest. Adrift within the confines of the airport’s physical space and time zones, they undergo a journey of self-discovery that embraces tangents, digressions, and undecidability.As supersonic Concordes soar in the skies outside, inside the airport Pat is uprooted: they savour a trendy cappuccino, walk through magazine stalls, engross themselves in the operatic melodies at the airline lounge.They hop on a baggage conveyor leading to an underground feminist movement, engage in a lively trivia game show and witness the sparks of a socialist revolution. After they become a character in an erotic thriller and detective novel, Pat encounters death, and emerges reborn—all while navigating sudden shifts in gender due to the onset of ‘sexual amnesia’. Brophy’s experimental non-binary 1969 anti-novel was decades ahead of its time. At once a refusal to be identified, and irreverent celebration of identity's undoing.