Out Into The Beautiful World - Softcover

Theodore Dalrymple

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1943003025 ISBN 13: 9781943003020

Publisher: New English Review Press, 2015

Synopsis

When I was a young man I thought that metaphysics was the most exciting (and important) thing in the world. I wish now that I had not wasted so much time on the imponderable questions of metaphysics but had used it to more worthwhile effect. Rather than study philosophy, I should have studied insects.

In the little essays that follow, I have no grand theory to prove, no single message to convey. Small things and slight occurrences have caught my attention and caused me to reflect a little. I hope only to please the reader.

- Theodore Dalrymple

About this title

About the Author

Theodore Dalrymple is a former prison doctor and psychiatrist. He has been arrested as a spy in Gabon, been sought by the South African police for violating apartheid, visited the site of a civilian massacre by the government of Liberia, concealed his status as a writer for fear of execution in Equatorial Guinea, infiltrated an English communist group in order to attend the World Youth Festival in North Korea, performed Shakespeare in Afghanistan, smuggled banned books to dissidents in Romania, been arrested and struck with truncheons for photographing an anti-government demonstration in Albania and crossed both Africa and South America using only public transportation. He is also the author of more than two dozen books and innumerable essays.

Review

In his modest claim to have no grand theory or single message, Theodore Dalrymple echoes the great essayist Michel de Montaigne - whom he resembles in wisdom, wit, felicity of prose, and insatiable curiosity, as well.

- Myron Magnet, author of The Founders at Home and editor-at-large of City Journal

This is a constantly engaging and humorous collection of the always informative and original observations of one of the most elegant and erudite contemporary writers in the English language.

- Conrad Black, author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, A Matter of Principle, Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership and Rise To Greatness: A History of Canada from the Vikings to the Present

Theodore Dalrymple has done something that all the severe literary critics had decreed impossible. He has revived the essay. In the course of chasing his hat where it listeth, Dalrymple discovers the extraordinary multifariousness of human life from tender book inscriptions to "healthcare serial killers" and reveals all of it to us in language that is sometimes witty, sometimes tender, sometimes sharp, and always exactly right.

John O Sullivan, author of The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World and editor of Quadrant --New English Review

About this edition

• Publisher: New English Review Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1943003025
• ISBN 13: 9781943003020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 212