Enemies of Promise Revised ed. Edition

by Cyril Connolly (Author), Alex Woloch (Foreword)

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ISBN-13: 978-0226115047

ISBN-10: 0226115046

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“Whom the gods wish to destroy,” writes Cyril Connolly, “they first call promising.” First published in 1938 and long out of print, Enemies of Promise, an “inquiry into the problem of how to write a book that lasts ten years,” tests the boundaries of criticism, journalism, and autobiography with the blistering prose that became Connolly’s trademark. Connolly here confronts the evils of domesticity, politics, drink, and advertising as well as novelists such as Joyce, Proust, Hemingway, and Faulkner in essays that remain fresh and penetrating to this day.

“A fine critic, compulsive traveler, and candid autobiographer. . . . [Connolly] lays down the law for all writers who wanted to count. . . . He had imagination and decisive images flashed with the speed of wit in his mind.”—V. S. Pritchett, New York Review of Books

“Anyone who writes, or wants to write, will find something on just about every single page that either endorses a long-held prejudice or outrages, and that makes it a pretty compelling read. . . . You end up muttering back at just about every ornately constructed pensée that Connolly utters, but that’s one of the joys of this book.”—Nick Hornby, The Believer

“A remarkable book.”—Anthony Powell

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Editorial Reviews

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“Very ably introduced by Alex Woloch. . . . One of Connolly’s great gifts was self-deprecation, and one of his easier styles was that of the tongue in the cheek. He puts one in mind of two of the great contemporaries about whom he wrote—George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh.”

-- Christopher Hitchens ― Atlantic Monthly

“You cannot read Cyril Connolly for very long without wanting to acquire—and then developing—a relationship with the personality of the man himself. This small, podgy, balding, pug-faced, funny, gossipy, lazy, clever, cowardly, hedonistic, fractious, difficult man somehow manages to enshrine in his words and life everything that we aspire to, and that intellectually ennobles us, and all that is weak and worst in us as well.”

-- William Boyd ― Guardian

“A fine critic, compulsive traveler, and candid autobiographer. . . . [Connolly] lays down the law for all writers who wanted to count. . . . He had imagination and decisive images flashed with the speed of wit in his mind.”

-- V. S. Pritchett ― NYRB

“Anyone who writes, or wants to write, will find something on just about every single page that either endorses a long-held prejudice or outrages, and that makes it a pretty compelling read. . . . You end up muttering back at just about every ornately constructed pensée that Connolly utters, but that’s one of the joys of this book.”

-- Nick Hornby ― Believer

“A remarkable book.”

-- Anthony Powell

About the Author

Cyril Connolly (1903–74) was one of the most influential critics of his time, who wrote for such publications as the New Statesman, the Observer, and the Sunday Times. He is the author of many books, including The Rock Pool and The Unquiet Grave.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; Revised ed. edition (July 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226115046
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226115047
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #752,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #261 in Journalism
- #383 in American Literature (Books)
- #540 in English Literature

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rch

A Book That Has Lasted 75 Years...

Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2015

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Well, Connolly did it. As he explains in the opening of the book which he wrote in 1938, the goal of every important writer is to make a book that lasts ten years. That we're here talking about his work more than 75 years later means he succeeded (in fact, he knew this, as a updated edition came out in 1948).

Now, the book is a bit literary and occasionally dated and I even skipped most of the last third, but I'll say it: This is the best book I've ever read on literature, writing and publishing. In it, Connolly discusses all the things that writers face: distractions, critics, influence, self-destructive habits, egotism, financial needs and how these things impacts what they write and whether it will succeed. His famous line "Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising" comes from this book and its gems like it that make reading the somewhat tough book worth it.

10 people found this helpful

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Yi Zhang

A fantastic writing which reveals the secrets and aesthetic taste of ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017

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A fantastic writing which reveals the secrets and aesthetic taste of how to write great stuffs regardless of different epoch.

One person found this helpful

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Steiner

Although it is refreshing to read a sharp and funny critic occasionally take shots at the modernist giants such ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2018

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Cyril Connolly’s book of criticism is something of a classic of its kind, although its combination of essayistic survey and memoir defies the conventions of the genre. Although it is refreshing to read a sharp and funny critic occasionally take shots at the modernist giants such as Proust and Joyce, Connolly’s taste is at times (for me) provincially English and conservative. While there are many well reasoned judgments about literature here, and criticism, the book in the final analysis is so remote from the spirit of literary creation that the author’s advise is frequently pedantic and imperious.

One person found this helpful

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Charlus

An Unnecessary Book

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2010

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In this, his most famous work, Cyril Connolly refers to George Orwell's assessment of "Picture of Dorian Gray" as an unnecessary book, an opinion with which he comes to concur. After finishing this work, I can bring the same charge here. Startling in 1938 when it was first written in its sexual frankness and exposure of the corporal discipline at the public schools of the time, it has since outlived its relevancy, ironic as it is the topic it is ostensibly most concerned with, literary immortality (defined as being read for at least 10 years). The book is divided into 3 sections, the first having to do with varying literary styles (the Mandarin versus the Vernacular), the second with the Enemies of Promise (what makes a writer not live up to his or her potential) and lastly a memoir of his boyhood ending with his graduation from Eton and entrance to Oxford, having just the most superficial connection with the first two .

The first section comes across as a parlor game (similar to placing writers in Isaiah Berlin's Hedgehog or Fox classification system) and ultimately no more helpful than that. The second is full of advice that frequently seems dated and often sexist (writers are encouraged not to have children as the "pram in the hallway" is just a distraction, unless you have a wife willing to deal with said pram and allow you to work). Only the last section, wonderfully written, recalling the petty motivations of boyhood and the intensity of the drive for the "glittering prizes" at Eton, holds up, and even this section goes into details of personalities that were important to the writer but mean little to the reader.

As an editor and critic, Connolly accomplished much in his lifetime but now he is mostly forgotten except for this work, which ultimately is an explanation of why he didn't accomplish more. While it has its intermittent charms and interest, and certainly has historical importance, it is not a work that need have lasted the above mentioned 10 years, no less the 78 years this reprint has allowed.

15 people found this helpful

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Norman E. Conner

Literature insight.

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2015

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It was well written and informative to the point it was almost more then I needed to know about literature. I think I may need to read it again which is another way of saying it's a keeper/

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Stephen M. Keller

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2017

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great

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Patricia Burch-Vaughn

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2014

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product as described. fast shipping. a++++++

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Pumpjack

“There is but one crime, to escape from our talent.”

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2017

Cyril Connolly (1903 – 1974) was a British reviewer, critic and writer of distinction. Connolly’s Unquiet Grave — a despondent meditation on creativity, and existence, in a world challenged by the destruction of World War II — is one of my favorite books. I finally got around to ordering Enemies of Promise, first published in 1938 and designed to solve the problem of how to write an enduring book — by his count, one that stands for at least a decade.

The book is split into three major parts. The first is an audit of British writing, tracing the rise and fall of some of the well-known authors and poets (many of whom were not familiar to me) as well as their main styles of writing. This section really brought to life Connolly’s breadth of knowledge related to the landscape of English letters. The second part is focused on advice for how writers can live up to their own promise and produce a lasting work — this includes some of the pitfalls they must avoid. As an author and a reader, I found this section enlightening and at time maddening, given the similar challenges facing writers then and now. The third section is a personal history of his time at Eton, a boy’s school, and the tremendous psychological torture he endured that shaped his later career.

As this book makes clear, Connolly had an admirable grasp on the history of creative writing, especially in England, and offered some keen insights for writers that still ring true today. And, best of all, he has a unique, lyrical but imminently approachable style that makes his writing sing and spotlights the agile workings of an impossibly sharp mind.

“Writing is a more impure art than music or painting. It is an art, but it is also the medium in which millions of inartistic people express themselves, describe their work, sell their goods, justify their conduct, propagate their ideas. It is the vehicle of all business and propaganda.”

“At the present time for a book to be produced with any hope of lasting half a generation, of outliving a dog or a car, of surviving the lease of a house or the life of a bottle of champagne, it must be written against the current, in a prose that makes demands both on the resources of our language and the intelligence of the reader.”

“Our language is a sulky and inconstant beauty and at any given moment it is important to know what liberties she will permit.”

“To-day, the forces of life and progress are ranging on one side, those of reaction and death on the other. We are having to choose between democracy and fascism, and fascism is the enemy of art.”

“…drunkenness is a substitute for art; it is in itself a low form of creation.”

I love his suggestion that readers who enjoy a book get in the habit of sending a small tip or other token of appreciation to the author. That is a trend I certainly wish had caught on (though I’d settle for honest reviews)!

The third section about life at boy’s school, though it gave me my favorite line in the book — “I have always disliked myself at any given moment; the total of such moments is my life.” — was an odd addition. It certainly presented tragic insights into the cruelty of those days, but did little to get to the core question of how to write a book that endures.

Setting aside the curious — but moving — excursion into Pink Floyd-level schoolboy terrors, did Connolly’s book meet the very challenge he set out to resolve? Probably. Though his name and reputation aren’t exactly well-known almost 80 years later, there’s much of value to be found in his writing (once you get past the, what seems now, stilted and mostly masculine language) for writers, and artists of all stripes.

Not only did Connolly make a life and a career out of thinking seriously and deeply about literature and creativity, he also seemed — scarred by the loss of life accompanying WWII — almost prescient in his defense of art and his despair at a world willing to risk everything for, ultimately, nothing:

“At present the realities are life and death, peace and war, fascism and democracy; we are in a world which may soon become unfit for humans to live in.”

Artistic work may not last longer than the life of a bottle of champagne, but it seems despair about the short-sightedness of global politics — if we can’t learn the lessons Connolly laid out 80 years ago — will always endure.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Suzette A. Hill

Indispensable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2018

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A brilliant book: shrewd, witty, elegant and instructive. A 'vade mecum' for all lovers of literature. I lent my first copy to a friend and it disappeared for good; it was thus essential to buy a replacement!

2 people found this helpful

Pirlo

Seminal

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2002

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Half of the book is written as advice to a young writer, around the theme of how a novel might last ten years. Contains a brief history of literary trends from the 'mandarin' prose of the Georgians to the inter-war generation. Connolly writes immaculately and contains the famous warning that there is no more dreary enemy of art that "the pram in the hall"
The other half is a straight autobiography of his Edwardian childhood, through prep school (as a contemporary of Orwell) and Eton. His descriptions are splendid.
More accessible than 'The Unquiet Grave', a book I would recommend to anyone with literary aspirations.

16 people found this helpful

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Enemies of Promise Revised ed. Edition

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