This is the final installment of Amit Chaudhuri’s column, The Moment. Last year, I commuted between Oxford and Norwich, where I teach in the autumn. On Mondays, I took a train via London; on Tuesday evening, I took the same route back. It’s a fo…
When does writing begin? The act of committing the first words to a page—as I am doing now—is cited for its difficulty. Though those words might well be deleted from the final draft, the resistance of the blank page is justifiably famous. I…
Appreciation of artwork is always situated in, and partly an expression of, a cultural context. And there are different cultural contexts, and, within these, different languages of appreciation. Certain milieus make room for visceral, spontaneou…
My mother often told me how much I’d looked forward to my first day of school. Although I find the thought extraordinary—I loathed school—it’s plausible. I was an exuberant boy. The deceptively effervescent nursery, which no longer exist…
On watching Ben-Hur in Bombay, remakes, and the wide-ranging repercussions of a loose tile. I think I began watching MGM-style historical epics at the New Empire. There was a cluster of three cinemas in the bit of Bombay near my school—Sterlin…
This is the first installment of Amit Chaudhuri’s new column, The Moment. When do we start noticing a house? We know it’s there, but don’t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it. I ask this because of my interest …