Anita Desai
Indian novelist, University professor
Simon Arthur Noel Ravenwas an English author, playwright, essayist, television writer, and screenwriter. He is known for his louche lifestyle as much as for his literary output.
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About the Simon Raven
Simon Arthur Noel Ravenwas an English author, playwright, essayist, television writer, and screenwriter. He is known for his louche lifestyle as much as for his literary output.
Expelled from Charterhouse School, he was commissioned in the infantry in National service, before studying at King’s College, Cambridge. Unable to earn a living as a writer, he rejoined the Army, but soon resigned, rather than be court-martialled for ‘conduct unbecoming’ on account of his gambling debts.
Declaring that he wrote only for people who shared his own standards, he never attracted the mass market, and had to be rescued by publisher Anthony Blond, who paid him a regular wage on condition that he stayed out of London and concentrated on his writings, many of which Blond published. The arrangement lasted for over 30 years.
Raven is remembered for his ten-novel sequence Alms for Oblivion and its baroque, supernatural sequels The Roses of Picardie and September Castle; as well as The Feathers of Death, an exploratory early army novel dealing with homosexuality between officers and “other ranks”. He also wrote scripts for the television drama series The Pallisersand Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978).
8 Quotes by Simon Raven
- 1.
I loved the Army as an institution and loathed every single thing it required me to do.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 2.
Nobody minded what you did in bed or what you said about God, a very civilized attitude in 1948.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 3.
I wanted to look at the upper-middle-class scene since the war, and in particular my generation’s part in it. We had spent our early years as privileged members of a privileged class. How were we faring in the Age of the Common Man? How ought we to be faring?
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 4.
How can I go on with this? Please God, let me win a football pool.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 5.
Art for art’s sake, money for God’s sake.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 6.
Gentlemen can now only behave as such, or be tolerated as such, in circumstances that are manifestly contrived or unreal.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 7.
And so, at the age of thirty, I had successively disgraced myself with three fine institutions, each of which had made me free of its full and rich resources, had trained me with skill and patience, and had shown me nothing but forbearance and charity when I failed in trust.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)
- 8.
Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books.
Simon RavenBritish writer (1927-2001)