Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Ackroyd, Peter - James Buchan (review date 30 May 1992)

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James Buchan (review date 30 May 1992)

SOURCE: “The Relics of Learning,” in The Spectator, May 30, 1992, pp. 24-5.

[In the following unfavorable review of English Music, Buchan objects to Ackroyd's sentimental literary pastiche and the postmodern notion that originality is no longer possible.]

This novel starts well. A boy stands in the glare of gaslight on the wooden stage of an East End theatre, helping his father perform acts of faith healing. It is 1925 or thereabouts and the London air is crowded with the souls of the recent dead. Though he barely yet knows it, it is Timothy Harcombe, not the father he adores, who has the medium’s power of communication with the departed spirits.

Timothy’s mother is also dead, and he is soon separated from his father and put in the care of his grandparents in Wiltshire, which is an Ackroydian Siberia, Timothy goes to school while Clement Harcombe moves in with a woman disciple....

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Joseph Rykwert (review date July 1986)
   2. Michele Roberts (review date 11 September 1987)
   3. Peter Ackroyd with Amanda Smith (interview date 25 December 1987)
   4. Michael Neve (review date January 1988)
   5. J. D. McClatchy (review date April 1989)
   6. Peter Firchow (review date Autumn 1989)
   7. John Sutherland (review date 27 September 1990)
   8. William H. Pritchard (review date Summer 1991)
   9. Laurence Lerner (review date 20 July 1991)
   10. James Buchan (review date 30 May 1992)
   11. Brian Finney (essay date Summer 1992)
   12. D. J. Taylor (review date 5 June 1992)
   13. Chris Goodrich (review date 25 October 1992)
   14. Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 23 November 1992)
   15. Michael Levenson (review date 18 January 1993)
   16. John Clute (review date 3 September 1993)
   17. Francis King (review date 11 September 1993)
   18. Gary Davenport (review date Spring 1994)
   19. John Peck (essay date September 1994)
   20. Nicholas Meyer (review date 25 June 1995)
   21. James Wood (review date 21 September 1995)
   22. Susana Onega with Peter Ackroyd (interview date 23 November 1995)
   23. Trev Broughton (review date 30 August 1996)
   24. John Clute (review date 27 September 1996)
   25. Helen Pike Bauer (review date Spring 1997)
   26. William Hutchings (review date Winter 1997)
   27. Aileen Ward (review date 1997)
   28. Michael Glover (review date 6 March 1998)
   29. Lavon B. Fulwiler (review date Spring 1999)
   30. Eric Korn (review date 2 April 1999)
   31. Leonard R. Koos (essay date Summer 1999)
   32. Peter Ackroyd with Francis Gilbert (interview date 20 December 1999-3 January 2000)
   33. Peter Green (review date 20 March 2000)
   34. Will Self (review date 16 October 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright