Constellation of Genius: 1922: Modernism and All That Jazz

(Paperback)

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Gloriously entertaining, supremely erudite and delightfully idiosyncractic - this is the diary of the spectacular year of 1922 1922. The spectacular year that F. Scott Fitzgerald chose as a backdrop for his most famous novel The Great Gatsby. It was also the year where James Joyce's Ulysses and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land were published, Alfred Hitchcock directed his first feature, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Louis Armstrong took the train from New Orleans to Chicago and made Jazz the defining music of the age, and Hollywood transformed the nature of fame. Constellation of Genius is the gloriously entertaining journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, film-makers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians and scientists whose lives and works collided over twelve months, creating a frenzy of innovation and the beginning of a new era.

Reviews

Constellation of Genius is an insanely readable book about modernism. Indeed, I think it no disservice to Jackson to say that this is the primer the subject has been looking for: a way into its symbolic labyrinth for even the most literal-minded -- Will Self * Guardian *
[A] lively guide to modernisms heyday Almost every page yields something momentous or surprising of worth remembering, and the multitudinous footnotes, of which Jackson is a gleeful exploiter, add to the fun Elegant and illuminating A whizz-bang year. * Literary Review *
Open this marvellous diary of a single year at any page and you will be struck by some startling moment of import in a life of genius or an epoch-making event. * Sunday Herald *
Brilliantly erudite and very funny. -- Robert Macfarlane
Drawing on diaries, letters and other snippets, Jackson composes a day-by-day account of his chosen year . . . Popular and high culture are equally celebrated in this Barnums Circus of a book. The volume is beautifully produced. * Sunday Telegraph *

Author Bio

Kevin Jackson has written thousands of articles, primarily on film, photography, modern art, literature and cultural history for, among others, The New Yorker, Granta, Prospect, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, Guardian, Evening Standard and Vogue. He has been a script editor and script consultant, lectured and taught at the National Film Theatre, the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Musuem, presented documentaries for Radio 3 and Radio 4, directed and produced films for television, written the book and lyrics for a rock opera, curated film seasons and a photography exhibition as well as authored and edited more than twenty books.