Category Archives: Books and Culture

See how form follows fiasco

Posted on September 21, 2021 by David Brussat

I’ve just started rereading the late Peter Blake’s slender 1960 hagiography of French architect Le Corbusier, born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland. A far better book on Corbu, as he is known by his many deluded admirers, is Le Corbusier: The … Continue reading →

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O’Brian’s game of composers

Posted on January 18, 2021 by David Brussat

Having just had a capital meal of lasagna to celebrate a removal of sutures from the gap left by an extracted tooth, I am reminded of a passage I marked years ago in Patrick O’Brian’s The Nutmeg of Consolation, 1991, … Continue reading →

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Capt. Aubrey’s dad’s house

Posted on December 4, 2020 by David Brussat

Here is a May 2016 post, quoting from the late Patrick O’Brian’s The Surgeon’s Mate, written in 1979. His novels are – and I truly hate to say this, as it verges on sacrilege – as good as those of … Continue reading →

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Classical Alex Trebek, R.I.P.

Posted on November 11, 2020 by David Brussat

Alex Trebek died the other day. I heard the news in the half-time report of a televised pro football game. Jeopardy! and I had drifted apart of late, but I and my wife, Victoria, watched the show with some fervor … Continue reading →

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Going wild over beauty

Posted on April 8, 2020 by David Brussat

Beauty is a form of Genius – is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver … Continue reading →

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A deliriously lovely chapter

Posted on March 24, 2020 by David Brussat

One of the most beautiful passages in contemporary literary history will surely be, when it is published on May 5, chapter 20, “Sunlight on the Furniture,” in Villa of Delirium, by the French author Adrien Goetz. Its English translation by … Continue reading →

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Tale of a Greek villa rebuilt

Posted on March 20, 2020 by David Brussat

I was recently sent a novel, Villa of Delirium, about the lives of the historical inhabitants of a villa on the Côte d’Azur built at the turn of the last century as a copy of a palace in ancient Greece. … Continue reading →

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Sir Roger Scruton, RIP

Posted on January 12, 2020 by David Brussat

Death took Roger Scruton today. He was the world’s deepest thinker on architecture and aesthetics, which were embedded in the conservatism of his broader philosophy. Scruton embraced tradition, holding that “the tried and true” are a stronger foundation than novelty … Continue reading →

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Curl’s American lecture tour

Posted on May 3, 2019 by David Brussat

Professor James Stevens Curl, author of the pathbreaking Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism, will be visiting on our side of the pond to receive a Ross Award from the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. … Continue reading →

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The mods’ survival explained

Posted on January 29, 2019 by David Brussat

They cut the feedback loop. Nobody has done a better job of explaining the persistence of modern architecture than does Roger Scruton in his review of James Stevens Curl’s new book, Making Dystopia. In his review, Scruton sums up with … Continue reading →

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