Gentle Regrets (Thoughts from a Life) - Hardcover

Scruton, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826471315 ISBN 13: 9780826471314

Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2006

Synopsis

Roger Scruton is Britain's best known intellectual dissident, who has defended English traditions and English identity against an official culture of denigration. Although his writings on philosophical aesthetics have shown him to be a leading authority in the field, his defence of political conservatism has marked him out in academic circles as public enemy number one. Whether it is Scruton's opinions that get up the nose of his critics, or the wit and erudition with which he expresses them, there is no doubt that their noses are vastly distended by his presence, and constantly on the verge of a collective sneeze. Contrary to orthodox opinion, however, Roger Scruton is a human being, and Gentle Regrets contains the proof of it - a quiet, witty but also serious and moving account of the ways in which life brought him to think what he thinks, and to be what he is. His moving vignettes of his childhood and later influences illuminate this book. Love him or hate him, he will engage you in an argument that is both intellectually stimulating and informed by humour.>

About this title

About the Author:

Professor Roger Scruton is Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Washington and Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. His other books include Sexual Desire, The West and the Rest, England: An Elegy, News from Somewhere and Gentle Regrets (all published by Continuum).

Review:

'Extracts'

(Third Way)

'...Roger Scruton so distinctive a figure on the British intellectual landscape...extraordinary range of his interests and sympathies - aesthetics, architecture, farming, hunting, literature, music, philosophy and, above all, religion...very fine book, brimming with humanity and intelligence, and beautifully produced by one of Britain's most interesting publishers...amiable and thoughtful...succinct...remarkable representative of English high culture...elegant book' (Michael Burleigh Literary Review)

'..beguilling memoirs'

(Jonathan Rée Independent, The)

'In this vivid confessional, Scruton incarnates ideas throughout in autobiographical events... by completely integrating the ideas into the personal narrative, the author creates a new and vital form which is beyond both scholarly dissertation and personal memoir... read this book and be eoncuraged... an excitement and a joy from cover to cover.' New Criticism

'A splendid book, often moving, often funny, disconcertingly humble but also full of passionate indignation and satire... fascinating.' Tablet

a very fine book, brimming with humanity and intelligence (Michael Burleigh Literary Review)

Scruton is an English philosopher best known for vigorously defending traditional culture in works like "England: An Elegy" and "The Meaning of Conservatism." His latest book assembles twelve "autobiographical excursions" into a composite account of his intellectual development. In addition to neatly expository essays ("How I Discovered Culture") and a sequence of poems entitled "Miss Hap," the collection includes a reminiscence of the "sleeping cities" of the Eastern bloc and an acute meditation on beauty and religious faith. The blunt wit for which Scruton is known is scarce here, but lyric suits him almost as well as polemic. Such passages as the evocation of a chapel filled with the "soft smell of stone that has grown old in shadow" vividly illuminate the moral import of aesthetic values.—The New Yorker

'The record of an extraordinary life...contains many memorable portraits of Scruton's friends, teachers, inspirations, antagonists...the central teaching of this wise and companionable book is that the acknowledgement of loss is not the end the prelude to the possession of joy.' (National Review)

"...Gentle Regrets, Scruton's wistful, magnanimous, and ineluctably intelligent memoir."- National Review, March 27, 2006

(National Review)

'[A] book of unforgettable reflections on childhood, schooling, music, opera, religion and love...[a] highly personal series of wistful reflections.' Times Literary Supplement, A. N. Wilson, 18/08/2006 (A. N. Wilson Times Literary Supplement)

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0826471315
• ISBN 13: 9780826471314
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248