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A review by joerobson
Hermit Of Peking: The Hidden Life Of Sir Edmund Backhouse by Hugh R. Trevor-Roper
3.0
This book was written by an arsehole about a different type of arsehole, and most of it bored me to tears. It's like if a bank manager had a gun to his head and had to write "the most exciting international gay crime caper he could imagine", so out of spite he decided to make the main character alternately pathetic and conniving and describe most of the action through letters and account books.
I think I liked the cover more than the actual story. Trevor-Roper was a racist imperialist who was subsequently duped- like so many people were by Backhouse- by the forgers of the Hitler Diaries in the 1980s. He is openly disgusted by Backhouse's homosexuality, and totally puzzled as to how a man could possibly want nothing to do with England or English people. Yes, I wonder why a gay man would want to leave a country where being gay was a crime. Backhouse wasn't a 'hermit', he just didn't want to associate with people like Trevor-Roper.
Oh, and the amount of time TR spends whinging about Backhouse's liberal use of Greek and Chinese in his memoirs is rich considering TR himself manages to include two or three (sometimes made-up) French words every page or so.
I think I liked the cover more than the actual story. Trevor-Roper was a racist imperialist who was subsequently duped- like so many people were by Backhouse- by the forgers of the Hitler Diaries in the 1980s. He is openly disgusted by Backhouse's homosexuality, and totally puzzled as to how a man could possibly want nothing to do with England or English people. Yes, I wonder why a gay man would want to leave a country where being gay was a crime. Backhouse wasn't a 'hermit', he just didn't want to associate with people like Trevor-Roper.
Oh, and the amount of time TR spends whinging about Backhouse's liberal use of Greek and Chinese in his memoirs is rich considering TR himself manages to include two or three (sometimes made-up) French words every page or so.