Gate of Lilacs carcanet the familiar and the strange

the familiar and the strange in poems which cast a sharp eye over their subject matter and return with wry

Moving from the melodic to the political

Comprising eighty-one poems of nine 9-syllable lines

I had always thought the critical essay and the poem were closely related forms

’  - Fiona Sampson

Gate of Lilacs carcanet the familiar and the strangeOver a period of fifteen years Clive James learned French by almost no other method than reading la recherche du temps perdu. Then he spent half a century trying to get up to speed with Proust's great novel in two different languages. Gate of Lilacsis the unique product of James's love and engagement with Proust's eternal masterpiece. With la recherche du temps perdu, Proust, in James's words, 'followed his creative instinct all the way until his