Description
Book SynopsisJames Harpur entered a boy's boarding school in the 1970s and survived to tell the tale. His sequence of poems is a searingly honest and compelling account of his five-year journey, from leaving home for the first time and sleeping in a dormitory in which enemies appear like shadows, to his sadness at his parents' separation and the death of a father figure from a bomb. For as well as Prog Rock, flared trousers and industrial strikes, this was the era of the Troubles. An introvert in an extraverted world, Harpur took refuge in Homer and the magical world of Troy, and found that school could be a haven, and even fun: a sex education lesson that backfired; a rare sighting of girls at a dance; a scary ride on his brother's illegal motorbike; a surreal trip to Covent Garden. Powerful, poignant and humorous, The Examined Life re-creates a 'vale of soul-making' that, with its tragedy and comedy, heroes and villains, is like a microcosm of life itself. 'A quite marvellous work...an Odyssey, a Ulysses shaken up in the snow-dome of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.' -From the foreword by STEPHEN FRY
Trade Review‘Completely wonderful to read. I was amazed, amused, horrified, and so very moved.’ — KEGGIE CAREW (Author of Dadlands, winner of the 2017 Costa Biography Prize)
‘It’s an unflinching account of an unholy initiatory ordeal – moving, funny, tender, lyrical and exact …Terrific stuff.’ — LINDSAY CLARKE (Author of The Chymical Wedding, winner of the 1989 Whitbread Prize)
