Lately I’ve been reading two biographies: Ian MacNiven’s 800-page monster Lawrence Durrell: a biography and the Hesperus Press edition of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Life of Dante, from their “100 Pages” series. I don’t think you have to see the title of this post—or the attractive cover image on the left—to work out which one I finished first.

Giovanni Boccaccio was still a child when his fellow-Florentine Dante died in 1321. As a result of this, there’s something quite wistful about the Life of Dante, in which Boccaccio praises Dante’s virtues and rails against his enemies (including, in several stirring chapters, the entire population of Florence). It must have been frustrating to have lived so close in both time and place to Dante and yet to have missed him. (Keep reading …)

Once you’ve decided on your characters’ names, you’ve still got the problem of what to actually call them. Take, say, Dr. Derek Burlington. Is he the Doctor, Doctor Burlington, Doctor Derek, Derek Burlington, Doc, Burlington, Derek, Bones, Del, Uncle Derek, D.B. or Burley?

Another Derek: Derek Trotter from British TV series Only Fools and Horses. He’s Delboy to his friends; Derek or Trotter to people he’s in trouble with; the name Trotter is spat out with contempt; and he’s the complete Derek Trotter when he’s trying to appear professional or gain somebody’s trust.

Remember Nabokov? (Keep reading …)

This afternoon, while walking past the Colosseum, I saw an English mother and son. He was running around in wide circles on a patch of grass, and she was waiting nearby. As I reached them, she called out:

“We’re going now, James. Come here onto the boulders.”

The boy showed no signs of changing course, but a few seconds later, when his loop brought him close to his mother, he replied:

“Hi! I’ve changed my dance!”

These lines made me think of the trouble that a lot of writers have with making their dialogue ring true. (Keep reading …)

US film maker Karen L. Mintz is in the process of making what looks like a fascinating documentary about the nation of Bhutan: Gross National Happiness, 68 Miles from Thimphu. (Keep reading …)