Neville Cardus (1888–1975)

This book proved an immense disappointment, and I now wish that I had not finally found the opportunity to read it.

From boyhood two of my favourite pastimes have been reading and cricket, and I have always particularly savoured well-written books (either factual or fiction) about that noble sport. Indeed, of all sports, cricket is possibly the one that has been best served by literature. I put that down to the regular pace, and episodic nature of the game. With the likes of football or show more rugby, the action is potentially too fast paced and seamless to lend itself to purple prose; with cricket, the lengthy timeframe and the gentle stop-start approach, with each delivery a discrete and self-contained incident offer a steadier and broader canvas for the artist to express themselves.

There is a positive cornucopia of glorious writing about cricket. Perhaps the most famous is the match at Dingley Dell recounted in Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers, although the oddities described in that game lead one to speculate that Dickens himself was largely unfamiliar with the realities of the game. Any catalogue of other fine fictional examples would have to include Tom Brown’s Schooldays, any number of P. G. Wodehouse’s early school stories (and Mike in particular), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, ‘Spedegue’s Dropper’. The epitome of fictional representations of cricket would, however, have to be the chapter in A G McDonnell’s England, Their England, in which the novel’s Scottish protagonist joins a team of boozy journalists to play against a village team.

There has also been a wealth of non-fiction inspired by the game, often venturing into areas far removed from the playing area. For instance, C L R James’s Beyond a Boundary addressed a political agenda about equality and exploitation through the prism of the cricket pavilion window.

For many follwoers of the game, Neville Cardus represents the apotheosis of the cricket journalist, lauded for his evocative prose and boundless love of the game. I was, therefore, delighted to find a copy of Days in the Sun, an anthology of some of his best-known pieces, and eagerly began reading it on my way home from work, expecting a treasure trove of delights. I was sadly disappointed. I found the writing very stilted and strewn with clichés. The first piece, in which the writer falls asleep at Lords and dreams he is watching a classic test match from thirty years earlier, felt woefully wooden, but proved to be the strongest work in the collection. Rather than evoking the Corinthian glories of the sport, these articles seemed to me to be mired in self-congratulation, and also to have been churned out at great speed, possibly with an eye on a clock rapidly whirring around towards a deadline, and wholly failed to convey any sense of love or savour for the game. I realise, of course, that Cardus was writing for his own times, and that these pieces are now nearing their own century, but they have aged less gracefully than many of their contemporaries. Indeed, they seemed to me to be redolent of all the alleged self-satisfaction and complacency that are so often latched upon by people who despise cricket as a distasteful relic of a sullied and Imperial past. show less

Gerald Moore's Am I Too Loud? is where I first encountered Kathleen Ferrier, an incredible woman who clearly touched a lot of lives, achieved incredible fame, whilst remaining humble and extremely down-to-earth. This portrait is only bolstered further here by contributors of varying professional/musical relationships to Ferrier. They helped reveal the person behind the artist, the amount of hard work that translated into effortlessness on the classical music stage, as well as her contrasting show more Lancastrian roots and charisma.

The depictions here of Ferrier's almost saintliness cannot be understated, and the glimpses offered here by this book not only helps elevate her even more but also manages to humanise her. Her clear musical ambitions match the sombre upper class reputation classical music tends to have, while her unfiltered emotions (enjoying a prank/joke or unleashing her fury) paradoxically makes her seem even more regal and composed. With her popularity, her background, her powerfully low voice, is Adele the modern day Ferrier? show less

A dusty tome from the university library, published 1947. What a different tone of voice he has. I didn't understand half of his cultural references but liked the ride. He eventually made a name for himself writing a high-brow cricket column. But his best love was music criticism and he regarded his writing on that topic as superior. I liked reading about what a resolutely square peg he was. His relatives dead, he lived on his own from the age of twelve and read what he decided were the show more great works in order to self educate. Near the end of the biography he mentions that he gives himself six hours of solitude per day. Included is a description of the last music performance season in Salzburg in 1937 before annexation. show less

Neville Cardus was a cricket and music journalist, who joined the Guardian newspaper in 1916 and died on February 28 1975.

This book illustrates his mastery of prose. There are wonderful descriptions, magical turns of phrase, all covered with an elegance and mastery of language that shows up all modern commentators. Cardus was of the old school when mastery of language, phrase and syntax were valued qualities.

Read this book, even if you have no interest in music, for the quality of prose this show more book contains.

Sadly, the modern age has seen a serious decline in the quality of prose construction. Only read this book to have definite confirmation of this fact. show less