Customer Reviews

Fiercer Than Tigers: The Life and Work of Rex Warner

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Rex Warner is known for two things. In his first incarnation he was a young novelist and member of the "Auden Generation" that flirted with communism throught the 30s. His novel "The Aerodrome" is his single substantial legacy from this period and one of the most original books of the decade. In his second phase he was an academic and a remarkable translator of Greek, especially of Xenophon and Thucidydes, and breathed new life into these authors with his remarkable and still fresh translations for Penguin books (his version of the "Anabasis" [translated as "The Persian Expedition"]done in the late 40s did for Xenophon what Rieu did for Homer). Also, he introduced the English speaking world to the work of the Greek poet George Seferis, who would later go on to win the Nobel Prize. I found this book moving and sad, especially given Warner's own self-assessment and feeling of failure regarding his life and career, but I especially enjoyed the chapter on Warner's time in Greece in the forties in which he embraces a new sense of self and seemed to be his happiest. Thank you Dr. Tabachnick for a long overdue bio of this great man.