The Secret History of Modernism

by C . K . Stead (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $114.35

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.39

  A chance meeting has New Zealand writer Laszlo Winter thinking back to his time in London in the late 1950s. The Empire might be in a state of collapse, but for young 'colonials', England remains a mythical place that draws them from the farthest corners of the globe. There was Australian Samantha Conlan, clever, desirable, hopelessly in love with married Jewish New Zealander Freddy Goldstein, who carried with him a dark history. Rajiv, an earnest young Indian at work on a study of Yeats and the Indian mind. The enigmatic Margot, whose bond with her athletic brother Mark troubled Laszlo in ways he didn't quite understand. Heather, the call girl with whom Laszlo exchanged lessons on Shakespeare for lessons in love. The great writers of the time, and the details of their lives are recorded by Samantha in her idiosyncratic research project that she named her Secret History of Modernism. There was all of that and more, and then there was Laszlo, knocking blindly about among them, despairing at his academic prospects, and gradually realising that he was, would only ever be, a storyteller. Now, years later, from the other side of the world, the people seem to spring to life again, in this beguiling work by one of New Zealand's foremost writers.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.39

  The arrival of a stranger to his house in Auckland leads renowned novelist Laslo Winter to look back to the past, to London, the late 1950s. The Empire was collapsing, yet young colonials , for whom England remained a mythical place, were still drawn there from its farthest corners. Samantha Conlan had come from Sydney, ostensibly fleeing an affair with married Freddy Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor. But Samantha knows Freddy will come to London; and as she waits for him, she continues her peculiar research into the great writers of the time, in a research project that she names The Secret History of Modernism . Among her circle of friends and admirers is the young Laslo. Beautifully written, with wonderful clarity and humour, The Secret History of Modernism reflects on post-war England and its Empire in the wake of the greatest upheaval of the twentieth century.