Mark Dooley is an Irish teacher and journalist who has previously written on the work of Roger Scruton. This book is the result of a three-day conversation with Scruton at his farm in Wiltshire. It is not written as a formal interview, but rather as a continuous narrative, with Dooley initiating subjects for discussion and Scruton then responding. The text is filled with extended quotes from Scruton’s works that reinforce the narrative. Given the fact that Scruton’s works are very, very far-ranging (he has written on art, architecture, intellectual history, Kant, Spinoza, sex, politics, music, etc. and has composed operas, written novels, taught, created consultancies and worked in think tanks), so is the discussion. Dooley asks intelligent questions, demonstrates a professional familiarity with many of the subjects at issue and is not afraid to get personal. The conversations are in approximate biographical order, so that the book constitutes a mini-biography as well as a latter day example of tischreden or table talk. The talk is more ‘extended’ than epigrammatic and the result is less marmoreal than one sees with Eckerman or Boswell, though it is unfair to compare anyone’s talk—even one as formidable as Scruton—with titans like Goethe and Johnson.
There are some interesting anecdotes and some new facts (that, e.g., RS wrote his introduction to Kant in four days). The book is a pleasant read of some 200 pp. There are no illustrations, but pictures of RS’s farm and family are available on the internet. Readers of Scruton will welcome this set of insights into his life and mind; those coming to him for the first time might even want to begin here, since Scruton talks candidly about his own books—those with which he is most pleased, those that may be a little longer than necessary, and so on. Since Scruton has written at length about the England that is quickly fading from view it is interesting to see him in his native habitat, working as an actual farmer and serving as the organist at his local church. Since he has spent a good bit of time in the United States it is very interesting to hear him discuss such topics as the American political ethos and system of education, from home-schooling to the current state of our universities.
Highly recommended for Scruton readers.
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