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Article: Books: Memory island A biography of a disused military hospital? It may not sound like a promising subject; but, says Michael Bracewell, Philip Hoare's deeply personal foray into the past is a tour de force
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- April 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2001 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Spike Island: the Memory of a Military Hospital
By Philip Hoare
FOURTH ESTATE pounds 17.99
In his biographies of Stephen Tennant and Noel Coward, and in his
chilling depiction, in Wilde's Last Stand, of the paranoid
litigiousness of the proto-fascist MP Noel Pemberton-Billing, Philip
Hoare has always displayed a highly attuned sense of historical
empathy. The past, for him, is not a clinical exhibit, its
strangeness, beauty or horrors secured within the controlled
environment of academic detachment. Rather, by channelling the poetic
constitution of the past through the filter of meticulous historical
research, he sees his subjects in the here and now, their influence
still felt.
Hoare's ...