Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Ackroyd, Peter - Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 23 November 1992)

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Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 23 November 1992)

SOURCE: “Peter Ackroyd's Music,” in The New Yorker, November 23, 1992, pp. 142-44.

[In the following review, Klinkenborg offers an unfavorable evaluation of English Music.]

In Peter Ackroyd’s sixth novel, English Music, a great thickness of remembered time lies over the English landscape like a new fall of snow. “Yes,” the book begins, “I have returned to the past.” This voice belongs to Timothy Harcombe, narrating the events of his youth from a cavern deep in old age in 1992. Timothy is the son of Clement Harcombe, a fake medium who has prospered in London during the nineteen-twenties by using Timothy’s (very real) psychic gifts, which the boy himself is slow to discern. Onstage at the Chemical Theatre, with his father as mouthpiece, Timothy deciphers the worries and heals the wounds of the small audience that assembles there. At home, the two talk about what...

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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