Description
Poetry. In this hilarious and irreverent new collection, Robert Conquest, now in his 95th year, lets us in on the musings of Old Fred, a man reflecting on the battle of the sexes, and wholly impervious to notions of political correctness. The poems give witty expression to a mind at once resigned and optimistic, baffled and amused, stoical and exuberant.
"All Conquest's strengths are evident here — wit, love of life, ferocious technique, and the infinite taking of pains." —Martin Amis
"Never has blokishness appeared so witty, clever and charming as in these irresistible verses by Robert Conquest. Fred is the bloke whose lore this is, and Conquest treats us to Fred's robust male view of the opposite sex with a disarming candour. Only a first-rate poet could have written stanzas of such deceptive lightness and ease, engagingly propounding Fred's solidly masculine but far from simple sexual philosophy." —Selina Hastings
"Fred Faraday may be Robert Conquest's liveliest poetic invention to date. Fred was a philosopher — of life, to be sure, but with a particular interest in the progress of the battle of the sexes. His 'blokesongs' are seasoned dispatches from behind the lines, where Fred frequently scouted (with copies of Ovid and Juvenal in his rucksack). Kingsley Amis's Welsh traveling salesman Dai Evans — another glorious bloke — would have enjoyed lifting a few pints with Fred, his elder and worldlier comrade-in-arms. Old Fred clearly won more battles than he lost, but to Conquest go the spoils!" —David Yezzi
"Conquest's formidable reputation as a historian ... should not distract from his parallel achievement as a poet, critic and cultural arbiter who had his first poems published in 1937 ... Here Conquest restricts himself to straightforward four-line stanzas with regular rhymes and jaunty metres, a deceptively simple form that gives immediate pleasure and is naggingly memorable ... This is ... a very entertaining and sprightly collection."—David Collard
Author Bio
Robert Conquest was born in Malvern, Worcestershire, UK, in 1917, to an American father and his English wife. Educated at Winchester College, the University of Grenoble, and Magdalen College, Oxford, he took his BA and (later) MA degrees in politics, philosophy, and economics, and his D. Litt. in Soviet history. He was the author of twenty-one books on Soviet history, political philosophy, and international affairs, the most recent being The Dragons of Expectation (2004). His classic, The Great Terror, has appeared in most European languages, as well as in Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish. Conquest was a Fellow of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature, and the British Interplanetary Society; he was also a member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (contributing to Britannia an article on the Roman Place Names of Scotland). His honours and awards included the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George; the Order of the British Empire; the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland; the Ukrainian Order of Yaroslav Mudryi; the Estonian Cross of Terra Mariana Order of Merit; the Jefferson Lectureship; the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Michael Braude Award for Light Verse; the Richard Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters; the Fondazione Liberal Career Award; and the Dan David Prize. He lived with his wife Elizabeth in California, where he worked as a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He died in 2015, aged 98.
Author City: STANFORD, CA USA