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First published in 1927, this is Wyndham Lewis's most important book of criticism and philosophy. He turns against his fellow modernists, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce to show how they have unconsciously turned their supposedly revolutionary writing into a vehicle for ideologies that undermine real human creativity and progress. The heart of this critique is a devastating assault on metaphysical doctrines that, Lewis believed, robbed the human mind of its creative power and handed that power over to time as a vital principle animating matter. In some of Lewis's most vivid writing, Bergson, Whitehead, Russell and William James are all mercilessly attacked for their implicit fatalism.
Lewis's argument remains unsurpassed for its liveliness, peceptiveness and brilliance of expression. This new edition of what Hugh Kenner called "one of the dozen or so most important books of the twentieth century" comes with full textual apparatus, editorial notes, an Afterword by Paul Edwards and substantial previously unpublished material. ... Read more

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Self Condemned, originally published in 1954, tells the story of Professor René Harding and his wife, Essie, as they find themselves in Momaco, a fictionalized version of Toronto, following René's resignation as an academic in London, England. Reduced to a position at the second-rate University of Momaco, René and Essie suffer through a bleak and oppressive isolation in a dreary and alien city.

The novel, a devastating, disturbing satire of life in wartime Canada, explores the difficulty individuals face as they struggle to adapt to new surroundings while preserving their sense of wholeness, as well as the bond that develops between people during a shared experience of isolation. Hailed by T.S. Eliot as "the greatest prose writer of my generation," Lewis wrote Self Condemned after he lost his vision in 1951

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Published in the shadow of the Spanish Civil War, "The Revenge for Love" is a political thriller attacking the fraudulence and feeble-mindedness of life in the Britain of the 1930s. A brilliant satire on a world that has lost its sense of self and been seduced by the appeal of Communism, it is one of a handful of books (it could be compared to Orwell's "Coming Up for Air" or Koestler's "Darkness at Noon") which defined a particular mood and to today's audience gives an unparalleled sense of how Europe turned toxic on the eve of the Second World War. A major statement by a great artist and writer "The Revenge for Love" now deserves a new generation of readers and is the perfect introduction to Lewis' work. ... Read more

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The Revenge of Love
I love the refutation on this book it brought great analyzing terms. The thesis was quiet hard to relate to the title. I found it quiet interesting. ... Read more

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Played out against the backdrop of Paris before the start of the First World War, Tarr tells the blackly comic story of the lives and loves of two artists--the English enfant terrible Frederick Tarr, and the middle-aged German Otto Kreisler, a failed painter who finds himself in a widening spiral of militaristic self-destruction. When both become interested in the same two women--Bertha Lunken, a conventional German, and Anastasya Vasek, the ultra-modern international devotee of "swagger sex"--Wyndham Lewis sets the stage for a scathing satire of national and social pretensions, the fraught relationship between men and women, and the incompatibilities of art and life. Scott W. Klein's introduction places the novel in the context of social satire and the avant-garde, especially the artistic developments of the 1910s--including Cubism, Futurism, and Lewis's own movement, Vorticism--and explores the links between Tarr and other Modernist masterpieces. The book also features Lewis's Preface to the 1918 American edition, comprehensive notes, a glossary of foreign words and phrases, and a map of Paris. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A fine new edition of a pioneering novel
Ever since Paul O'Keeffe published his edition of the 1918 version (Black Sparrow Press, 1996) of Wyndham Lewis's novel 'Tarr' the scholarly community has been in need of a scholarly edition of Lewis's 1928 rewrite of the same novel.

Scott Klein's edition for OUP's World's Classics series answers that demand in fine style. An extensive and illuminating editorial introduction frames what is a comprehensively annotated and explicated version of a text that to date has only been available as an unedited Penguin text (besides its original publication by Chatto and Windus).

Without doubt required reading for Lewis enthusiasts, but more importantly, as Klein suggests here, for general readers too. By reading one of Lewis's most experimental contributions to the novel form, new and old Lewisians alike necessarily will gain a greater understanding of the modernist novel as a whole.

Pretentious and deliberately exasperating
I picked up this book because an English major friend of mine said it was the most difficult book she ever read. I agree, but its difficulty lies not in any depth of thought or high artistic value; rather, this is an exhausting, dull read and I quickly grew to hate the characters and the author's writing style.

I read somewhere that it is a grave mistake to use foreign language phrases more than once or twice in an English language text. Perhaps it was in Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style". I wonder if they were speaking specifically of this book. On an average of once per page there is a German, Latin, or French phrase inserted in a dialogue or, even worse, the narration, and it isn't like these phrases are well known. Thesole purpose of these, in my opinion, is to further obfuscate a work that is already so desperately trying to be well-known for it's complications.

As for the characters, I'm not asking that an author make any of their creations lovable, sympathetic, redeemable people. But the self absorption and self-importance of these pathetically deluded people was not only obviously contrived but ultimately served no real purpose.

Do yourself a favor. Avoid this book. If you want to read a writer that willfully but highly successfully buries the meaning of his writing under layers and layers of abstraction, pick up the works of Dylan Thomas and let the enigmatic beauties of his poems unlock themselves for you at the most inopportune times. ... Read more

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Tutored by a 60-year-old Albino dilettante, Dan travels through the London art world. He is horrified, confused and bored by the contrived "broadcasts" of the "apes", a series of pseudo artists who resemble, on the one hand, absurd mechanical dolls, and on the other, specific personages of the era. ... Read more

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Apes of God
Wyndham Lewis is the kind of writer who everyone respects
but almost no one reads. Apes of God has all the trappings of a masterpiece: iconoclastic prose style, heavy-duty intellectual content, penetrating psychology and a shadowy and mythic, bombastic and possibly insane authour.

The book however, has 2 serious faults IMHO

The first could also be an advantage, depending on your point of view. Wyndham Lewis was a very, very bad man. He shared Ezra Pound's addiction to Fascism and had, in the words of Hemingway "the eyes of an unsuccesful rapist."
His "right-wing" politics were/are the reason he is not generally taught in universities or colleges. He is called a mysogynist, and indeed his female charaters are all exceptionally shallow and stupid. I happen to like the brilliant vitriol and Lewis makes no claim to objectivity.

Secondly Apes of God is too long and exceptionally boring in parts. The long satires of the artsy-fartsy social scene accomplish their goal, but personally I don't find reading about the insipidity of dinner parties very titillating. My biggest gripe however is The Sex. Sexual tension holds the plot together, but Lewis has a strangely victorian inability to write about the act itself. The Socratic homosexual relationship between Dan and the Protaganist Zagreus is rendered in a totally sterile manner.

the Planet of the Apes of God
Wyndham Lewis's ( founder of VORTICISM= the only British Avant-Garde movement of the 20th century)Apes of God is a vicious satire exposing the posture and posuers of the art world then (circa 1920's London/Paris/New York et.al.)and's wholly applicable before and aft as all areas not just the arts are riddled through with scavengery: shams and fakers lusting after popularity, getting on their knees in curtsies and bows before their corrupt Gods whom they shamelessly ape (ie.copy,mimick)in the devout worship of finance and social prestige; for which they sacrifice and abuse the very name of ART, using it only to profit greedy wiles and have no concern whatever as regards beauty or the bettering of humankind, much less the quest for absolute knowledge and solutions to humankinds varied cosmic dilemmas. The apes practice strictly black magic, a voodoo of the dollar whence they make idiot dolls of both the public, and their brethen, and mock the genuine bohemia by fostering appearances, such as upper middle-class citizens dressing in expensive outfits to look poor---the absurdity of the accepted norm really does summons an image of apes wearing clothes to fit in with humans!As comparison is legit and somewhat inevitable, Lewis' satire exceeds in both depth and vituperation that of George Orwell,and in its lyrical balled is more beautiful than Jonathan Swifts'. Lewis is of that rare species of sufficient force to prosper and forge single-handedly a one man advanced guard, as his graphic works equal in everyway and exist on a perfect par with his literary works; he was also, besides brilliant novelist, satirist, and painter who by many is said to best Picasso,he was a profound philosopher, an essayist of biting wit, a rare playwright and poet who wrote "An Enemy Of The Stars" - a futurist-fuelled expressionistic masterpeice published in one of several of his literary journasls' as a fearless, undaunted and unswayable critic he established himself in the guise he took in all his eclectic works: THE ENEMY! In which sense his condemnation was itself a form of praise, testifying to the fact he considered it worthy of his towering abuses. His works, published extensively by Black Sparrow Press, numbers perhaps 50 titles, many of them numbering well over half a thousand pages apeice; he even wrote, as his last major work a spiritual science-fiction trilogy which I pray will be published in the near future...Lastly, Wyndham Lewis unlike his contemporaries, including those like Pound and Eliot who champion his works, has over time wholly retained all the vigour initially constructed round that swirling vortex he single-handedly created, a veritable tower of Babel of achievments which will stand for centuries to come as one of the great wonders of the world of Art; and The Apes Of God, though some claim to be an elephant,ghostly white with wide red eyes, still romps through the literary jungles, levelling with terrifying stomping power all in its way, and a trailing desolation in its wake. His Apes Of God are still pounding their chests, all claiming to reign sole and supreme king of the jungle, yet scatter like field-mice at the approaching tank of a man that is Wyndham Lewis, perhaps the only artist left from his generation or this one that's capable of killing every last one of them who would otherwise take over the planet. I am, and remain, grateful some select few still can revel in his handsomely republished works such as this missive, thanks to undaunted publishers such as John Martin at Black Sparrow, dedicated to the works they print, which is a rare enough occurence these days. ... Read more

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Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), arguably the most significant British artist-writer of the 20th century, pioneered cutting-edge modernism in Britain before World War I, helping to turn London into an international vortex of creative activity. Yet he is unknown to many general readers and misunderstood by many specialists. Extensively illustrated, this is the first introduction to explore his work as both a writer and a painter, and to discuss his ideas about art, life, and politics.AUTHOR BIO: Richard Humphreys is head of interpretation and education at Tate and author of The Tate Britain Companion to British Art. ... Read more

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A must-have for students of Lewis.
I did a thesis for my BA on PWL, a seriously overlooked figure, and used this book more extensively than any other.It is a partial autobiography of the years during and around the Great War.It is an excellent exampleof how sharp and witty his prose could be. ... Read more

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Catalogue of a retrospective exhibition of the multifaceted artist.This is the first exhibition on Wyndham Lewis (Amherst, Nova Scotia, 1882 - London, 1957) presented in Spain and the most comprehensive show since the retrospective exhibition organized by the Tate Gallery in 1956, one year before his death. Over 150 artworks and 60 publications by himself offer a complete survey of the artistic and literary output of this multifaceted and controversial artist who was one of the key figures within international modernism of the first half of the 20th century. ... Read more

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Best book on Wynham Lewis
This is by far the best book on Wyndham Lewis as a painter, with the largest number of high-quality color illustrations available in any publication. The large-format catalog is a true labor of love; the layout and illustrations are stunningly beautiful. I have no doubt that this will become the standard work on Lewis the painter for many years to come. It also includes illustrations of many of his book covers. The exhibit on which this is based must be been amazing. ... Read more

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In December 1913, Ezra Pound wrote to William Carlos Williams calling the London art/literary scene ''The Vortex.'' Wyndham Lewis in turn appropriated the term to christen his budding movement in the arts, ''Vorticism.'' Vorticism was baptized on June 20, 1914 in the first issue of BLAST, A Review of the Great English Vortex - Lewis's revolutionary magazine. BLAST is now considered one of this century's examples of modernist expression and typography, both historically indispensable and a milestone in modern thought. To the artistic audience of its time, the first issue of BLAST came as a brutal shock (Lewis's plan was to create a ''battering ram''), a quality that has been preserved in this first facsimile edition. Described by Lewis as ''violent pink,'' but by some others as the ''puce monster,'' the large format magazine displayed radical typography and design, featuring a ''Vorticist Manifesto'' and eye-popping lists of items to be ''Blessed'' and ''Blasted.'' This new edition of BLAST documents in its original format the raw energy, violent humor, and graphic inventiveness.

Introduction by Paul Edwards. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Organisms with Pretensions
If you were to take with you on vacation Wyndham Lewis's Tarr as a beach read, it'd somehow manage to kick sand in your face. It isn't breezy, nor especially pleasant. There really isn't a character to like in the whole work. And, upon finishing it, you'll feel as if you spent a long time at a greatly demoralizing task like checking behind the testicles of prisoner after prisoner for crack rocks or razor blades.

Yet, the novel succeeds on its own terms. Lewis's puerile Nietzscheanism blares from every page, and his prose is as jagged as his Vorticist paintings. But Lewis really was the modernist's modernist (sorry Joyce fans, but it's true), almost singlehandedly introducing Cubism to Ruskin-worshiping Albion, and, of course, shaking up the literary scene with his journal, Blast. In Tarr you see just this sort of modernist: a writer not afraid to take risks, not reluctant to enrage a reading public fattened on the solicitous complacency of realist novelists.

Make no mistake, the guy was a fascist and a raging misogynist. But he was also a great artist.

Oh, and take special care to get only the 1918 edition; Lewis heavily revised Tarr in the twenties, much to the novel's detriment.

Wyndham Was Respected by Orwell for this Book
Wyndham's power derives from his tendency to be reactionary.Orwell, Pound, T.S. Elliot and Lewis all began with leftist tendencies, and evolved into a realization of the folly of superimposed mind control as practiced by the left.This novel is a stark satire of these "artistic" propoganda aspects as channeled through art.To attempt to label Lewis with all the ghastly "--isms" is to attempt to superimpose a like kind of modern leftist template over a wonderful '30's rebellion against exactly this kind of labelling.Hard as it may be to believe it, this putative thought control was even worse then, during the political ascendancy of communism.

The master race of artists
In his first novel, set in the cafes and nightspots of Paris during the beginning of the twentieth century, Wyndham Lewis presents the reader with a gallery of figures who live as a master race of artists. The action consists mostly of rows, one culminating in violence, during which the cast of poseurs and atavists engage in esoteric debates, which enable Lewis to weave in his own political and artistic concerns into the manifold of polemic. Typically of his novels, with their Fascist, racist, sexist, elitist biases, "Tarr" pulls no punches, assailing conventional bourgeois values in art and culture and proclaiming the figure of the artist as supreme. Along with Ezra Pound, Lewis was the founder of Vorticism, the British counterpart of Futurism, and also the joint editor of Blast!, the magazine in which Vorticist views were enunciated. With its glorification of velocity, violence, modernity and the machine, Vorticism's major tenets are consistently applied in the novel, with its brutal, striking, seemingly spontaneous prose style and its portrayal of the artist as a sort of automaton who will risk everything to attain his end, regardless of the damage that this may cause to others. However, the novel is let down by its lack of incident and the way in which the author blatantly allows his characters to act as mouthpieces for views which are clearly his own. A minor, and now almost forgotten, classic.

Tarr- The 1918 Version
With Tarr, Wyndham Lewis drags the reader through a few months in the lives of a collection of relentlessly self-absorbed and repulsive expatriates infesting the cafes and pensions of Paris just prior to theFirst World War. Cynicism and fermenting racial hatreds simmer just belowthe surface of a stew of intellectual banter and social intrigue.Conspicuous in its absence is any sense of sincerity or personal integrityof feelings. When a sincere response does erupt, it results in absurdity aswhen Tarr attacks the hat of his opponent in frustration after failing towin his point in a philosophical discussion. All of the principalcharacters are obsessive poseurs whose every behavior towards one anotheris propelled by a calculated maneuvering designed to improve one's positionin an informal, but powerful, pecking order. The machinations are ascomplex as the motivations are shallow. More often than not, an agendaoutruns the control of the agent who sets it in motion and the characterthen watches helplessly as events destined to blight his life unfold beforehim. Depressingly, the players do not appear to gain any insight from theirfoibles regarding the error of their ways and Lewis' dim view of thecharacter of his fellow man is unleavened by the humor that finds its wayinto his later novels. The greatest flaw I found in Lewis' Tarr is onetypical of the first novels of writers possessing an active intellect. Thenarrative flow is occasionally disrupted by the author's attempt toincorporate his own social and philosophical theories into the dialogue ofhis characters. And although this volume lacks the imagination andsophistication of Lewis' later works, there are a number of finely wroughtpassages which foreshadow the talent he is beginning to develop. Myfavorite;

For the last hour he had been accumulating difficulties, orrather unearthing some new one at every step. Impossible to tackle "enmasse," they were all there before him. The thought of "settlingeverything before he went," now appeared monstrous. He had, anyhow,started these local monsters and demons, fishing them to the light. Eachhad a different vocal explosiveness, inveighing unintelligibly against eachother. The only thing to be done was to herd them all together and marchthem away for inspection at leisure.

Tarr, The 1918 Version is anenjoyable and worthwhile read if you have the time, but if you will readonly one book by Lewis, leave this one on the shelf and, instead, make agrab for The Apes of God. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

paperback not hardcover
amazon does not have the hardcover of this book despite what this page says. i've ordered it twice and they are both paperback.

This book is also extremely hard to read.
But if you are still looking try the second hand shops in the Charing Cross Road, London.

For those who don't know, 'The C' is a 1920s book of the dead, in which there is a mass processing hold-up on the banks of theStyx due to the slaughter of WWI, and I suppose you could add the fluepidemic. WL dictated two sequels into a taperecorder 30 years later whenhe was blind.

Where???
This book is hard to find. I have been hunting for it for 3 years. I guess I will look further on still........... ... Read more

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The irrepressible controversialist, in a lively and provocative exposition of racial problems, mainly drawn from contemporary literature.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY:Books for College Libraries. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Equally talented as a writer and painter, Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) gained renown as the driving force behind Vorticism, the avant-garde movement that flourished in London before the First World War. This book provides the first critical overview of the visual, literary, and philosophical dimensions of Lewis's diverse works, from his abstract and representative paintings to his satirical novels andanalytical essays.Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art ... Read more

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A clear gaze on a murky fellow
Every reader knows of authors who were all the rage when they were alive and publishing, only to be forgotten or relegated to obscurity upon their death, if not before.They disappear for decades or generations, admired or consulted by those few who read in specialized fields; or they are the subject of intermittent articles in this or that journal.Thanks to the Internet they can be seen shimmering, a sort of astral projection, on web sites and list-serves with spotty attendances.In these venues situated on rural roads in the republic of letters they are argued with, championed, held up as the acme of what's misbegotten, or pegged as simply typical of a period.For fans, bitter consolation lies in their man or woman being reviled, as such shrill attention does indicate that the core of the oeuvre has not ceased to be dynamic, and perhaps threatening.

Occasionally authors have risen from the dust of library shelves, which is the closest we can now get to witnessing the Phoenix.These rescued figures become the product of cottage industries, but a well-timed nod from hollywood can escalate their reputations and swell their audience.Many of the latest literary finds are those whose work means something quite particular to current audiences - at times, but not in all cases, a retro chic - comprising enthusiasts, popular authors in a position to repay literary debts, scholars who have revisited past figures in search of their postmodern `nowness,' and because of groundswells of curiosity from disparate parts.There is a lovely unpredictability in the resurgence of these artists which fosters hope in those whose favourite choice has not yet bounced back into the limelight.(In an attempt at a shove back onto the stage, see my Amazon review of Lewis' _Rude Assignment_.)

It is unlikely that Wyndham Lewis will ever again receive the attention, negative or positive, that his paintings and writings garnered during his lifetime, yet if any critical work of recent years could restore his dented reputation and, more fruitfully, bring his ideas back into view for a fresh examination, then it is this book by Paul Edwards.

In his combination of literary analysis and art criticism Edwards writes with economy, clarity, intelligence and sensitivity about Lewis' paintings, drawings, short fictions, novels and a mass of philosophically-minded and politically generated essays and speculative works.One realizes that Lewis, perhaps the most probing Modernist in the anglo-united statesian family, left no major concern of the 20th century ignored, even if only to swipe at it with pen and brush.It is to Edwards' credit that he maintains a focus on his subject's wide-ranging thoughts and positions, especially as they are transformed with the passing of time and as events, historical and personal, transform Lewis.

Certain aspects of this book call for special commendation: the examination of _Tarr_, Lewis' first novel; the analyses of _Time and Western Man_ , the central non-fiction work of Lewis' writings, and of _The Human Age_, his last fiction; and the constant engagement with the art works.Art criticism is often written in an abstract and coded way, and academic criticism is often larded with unnecessary polysyllabic constructions, but a key benefit of Edwards' style is that one can argue with his conclusions or suggested interpretations because he has made himself understood.There is no dancing with words, or playfulness in a deconstructionist sense, to obscure his points.

In the aftermath of this book it was instructive, in a disappointing way, to read a review by irish novelist John Banville of _The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848-1914_, written by J.W. Burrow, which appeared in _The New York Review of Books_ (October 4, 2001, pp.38-40).On p.40 Banville responds to what Burrow says about Nietzsche:

"[...]There is a study to be made of the influence on modernism of Nietzsche's thinking, which is insufficiently acknowledged even by the most philosophically-minded of the modernists - it is hard to recall, for instance, a single mention of Nietzsche's name anywhere in Eliot's prose criticism."

Banville is mistaken when he says Nietzsche was not regarded sufficiently by "the most philosophically-minded" modernists, for as Edwards makes plain throughout his almost 600-page book (not a page too long), Lewis engaged Nietzsche in a constant debate (and dealt with many others as well).Pointing out this error on Banville's part is not meant to cast a slur against him; it merely shows how far Lewis has sunk below the critical horizon.

The book's layout is very good.In most cases, when art work is discussed the painting or drawing is at hand without needless flipping through the book.While as a rule footnotes are preferable, in this instance the use of endnotes is justified.

This book has given far greater pleasure than many others recently.For those unfamiliar with Lewis it is an excellent primer; for those just stepping into his sea of words it is an invaluable guide; and for those who are well acquainted with Lewis' concerns and motifs there is much to deliberate on, and hopefully respond to, in Edwards' original findings and his engagement with other critics.

Paul Edwards deserves more laurels than he is likely to get for writing about an artist who is underrated, over-scorned, difficult, and not very likely to experience a surge in popular appreciation.He also merits praise for writing in a direct manner, tackling the contentious aspects of Lewis' life and works head on, for his generally even-handed treatment of others who write on Lewis, and the zest underlying every sentence.His discerning enthusiasm will urge a reader to read Lewis' books again, or for a first time.Not many academics or critics achieve that notable goal. ... Read more

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Although under-recognized in his lifetime, Wyndham Lewis was one of the most important figures in 20th century British art. He was best known for being a modernist activist, an avant-garde artist, an essayist and novelist. But he was also a remarkable portrait painter whose works bristle with the combined energy and charisma of maker and subject.
This catalogue to the British National Portrait Gallery exhibition of Lewis's portraits presents a collection of work that has never before been exhibited (or published) together.
Whilst Lewis completed a number of commissioned portraits, his best works are those he created of his artistic peers: James Joyce, Edith Sitwell, Ezra Pound, Rebecca West, T. S. Eliot and Naomi Michison to name a few. The majority of these works are presented here and all demonstrate Lewis's resolutely non-naturalistic, visually complex style. ... Read more