Why was Brian Vickers given a K in the New Year honours list? It was for “services to literary scholarship”, but while he is heard of in university literary studies, he is hardly a star, like Sir Frank Kermode. Kermode has a long history of writing important criticism across a vast range (Bible, Shakespeare, modernism…), editing texts, and getting out there into radio, tv and journalism.
Vickers is a Renaissance specialist, has done several books on Shakespeare, and taken up the dull topic of Rhetoric. He has edited texts, and written criticism, including lots of reviews for the TLS, but he is neither admired, nor known to the public.
He is a vigorous controversialist, of the pedantic-aggressive kind (which doesn’t appeal to Monsieur Apache). Sometimes his scholarly aggression gets out of hand – a PhD candidate once biffed him during a viva, his questioning was so aggressive.
There are a dozen critics who have done as much as Vickers has done. So why choose him for a K?
Down at the Café Coup de Poing, my anarchist copain Andrés sips his américan and hints that recruitment for the secret services must still go on somehow, with reliable academics pointing suitable recruits in the right direction.
Come on Brian, is M your friend?
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