This is a weird and wonderful book. I learned a lot about William Blake, the painter, poet and print maker. I also learned a lot about the author and many other people ~ Gerald Manley Hopkins, Derek Jarman, Patti Smith. I knew Patti Smith was a fan of Blake as I have the collection edited by her but I hadn’t realised Robert Mapplethorpe did what he did ~ no spoilers ~ but what a stupid action. Well, actually two stupid actions. Also amazing to think William Robertson saved Blake’s work when it had no intrinsic value at the time. Otherwise we wouldn’t have the astonishing fever dream works we have.

Bowie was a fan, David Hockney, Gilbert and George. Blake lived and died penniless. Living in one room with his wife and his art. Like many geniuses who weren’t recognised in their lifetimes, his work is now esteemed and sought after. A shame that it couldn’t be understood in its time when Blake would’ve then had the leisure and materials to create more.

It’s a bit like Salvador Dali. The man who created those crazy surrealist dripping clocks also created a stunning image of Christ of St John of the Cross. Blake created a huge naked Newton, a ghost of a flea… but also wrote Jerusalem, an anthem for all England. Creatives are fascinating and this book gives a glimpse into several, while never forgetting the man at the centre.

I love Blake’s work and I’ll revisit it but I’ll also be revisiting a few other people after reading this book. It’s a triumph.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley.

A vast family tree of associations
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Hoare’s organic, mesmerising book will not be to the taste of many. It’s not a biography of Blake, nor even of his contemporaries, and certainly not of those artists and writers influenced by Blake, all the way to the author himself by way of TE Lawrence, Paul Nash and Derek Jarman. It’s not a precursor to the Pre-Raphaelites, or to William Morris. It’s not a book about the monsters of Blake’s imagination and perhaps his experience.

Or rather, it’s not simply any one of these things while being all of them, as well as partly Hoare’s memoir of Blake’s influence on him and his own life, an exploration of the reality and fantasy of monsters (particularly from the sea), on religion and patriotism, on love and friendship, on art history and art appreciation: there are many books in this dense commonplace book, and this will frustrate some readers as it will delight others.

Infuenced by Joyce’s stream of consciousness (and he makes a long cameo too), it’s possible to dip into the book and dip out again, or to read it through in one go; but I would say that it bears re-reading for specific nuggets from particular players, for confirmation of a quote or a phrase (speech isn’t indicated at all, and the first person pronoun can be confusing from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph), or for a colourful detail or revelation. Structured as a book but really it is more like a vast family tree of associations, coincidences and actions, that layer together into a palimpsest that describes William Blake in one way, whilst still allowing other ways to proliferate and bloom in the reader.

Four and a half stars

William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love by Philip Hoare is a deeply researched and yet thoroughly imaginative and engaging book.

I was going to begin by suggesting there is something increasingly unhinged about Philip Hoare’s books, as they cycle a fairly small set of subjects - whales dominantly, also the sea, art and artists, the interwar period, Bowie, queerness. But that would be unfair, as there are certainly hinges in William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love - the book is carefully structured; only not in a way that is immediately obvious to the reader. Blake and whales are the threads with which the book is impressively woven, taking in a bewildering and thrilling set of subjects; which range from Derek Jarman and Nancy Cunard to Paul Nash and Oscar Wilde. The links are often quite tenuous, but once you’re strapped in (and it took me a while), it’s an exhilarating ride. Two quotes to end on: ‘I realise what I love about art. It is just playing around, like dressing up, but it makes people take you seriously, sometimes’. And: ‘ Getting old, you are forced to parody yourself, your age as your disguise.’ That’s two ways into the book, which is as various, wild(e) and unhinged as Blake himself. And that must be a good thing.

An imaginative, somewhat idiosyncratic and richly layered examination of William Blake’s life, art, poetry and lasting influence, especially the impact he has had on writers, artists and thinkers down the ages to this day. Hoare offers the reader a deep and sometimes challenging exploration of the man and his work, a comprehensive evaluation which I found deeply interesting and thought-provoking. From Mary Shelley to Derek Jarman, from Paul Nash to Nancy Cunard, Blake’s reach has been considerable, and although I found Hoare’s digressive style required patience and concentration, and it’s certainly not a book that can be rushed, it’s one I found deeply rewarding, engaging and illuminating.

I can't really begin to describe this book. If anything it's more like an account of a man being haunted by William Blake and an exploration of other men who have been similarly afflicted. It has no real linear movement, no timeline and no adherence to anything much earthly except that the words are trapped inside the pages of a book. I have no problem with this. I think on balance that this is exactly the type of book Blake would approve of, although I am somewhat derailed by the idea of what he might have unleashed on the world via the power of TikTok were he alive today. I very much enjoyed the interludes spent in the company of Derek Jarman, Paul Nash and Gerard Manley Hopkins to name but a few of the fellow Blake devotees.

I feel rather washed up on the shore after a storm at sea having finally finished this book. I think it will stay with me in one aspect or another for a very long time.

A kaleidoscopic, dream-like foray into the art and poetry of William Blake, and a whole raft of artists who have taken inspiration from him over the years. Hoare's prose is as fluid and dense and changeable as the sea he uses as his central motif: it's compelling but I did wish he'd give me a chance to come up for air every now and then. Highly literary and rich in research, with a few too many meandering digressions, William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love is a unique and bewitching read.

A wonderfully queer, idiosyncratic exploration of the life, work and influence of visionary artist and poet William Blake. Philip Hoare shies away from cradle-to-grave biography or dry academic assessment, instead his approach is lyrical, poetic, richly associative, sometimes digressive, perhaps even a little self-indulgent. Moving restlessly back and forth in time and space, Hoare traces connections between Blake and a veritable cavalcade of literary, artistic and activist figures including: Derek Jarman; artist Paul Nash; Nancy Cunard; Mary Butts; T. E. Lawrence; Denton Welch; Oscar Wilde; James Joyce; medium Hester Dowden; and Algernon Blackwood. There’s a fascinating account of the life of W. Graham Robertson, once set designer for Oscar Wilde, whose chance encounter with Blake’s work was to rescue it from falling into obscurity; an intriguing meditation on the links between Blake’s poetry, his fascination with the natural world, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. All tangled up with fragments of Hoare’s own memories, glimpses of his emotional states, his astonishment at the power of Blake’s images and imagery. There are passages that possess a kind of hypnotic, deranged beauty; the intimate and reflective jostling with the more routinely descriptive. It’s hard to know exactly how to convey the feel of Hoare’s book, as a writer he’s been dubbed Derek Jarman’s literary heir, not unreasonably. But there are hints here too of Robert Macfarlane, even a touch of Sebald, although far, far wilder. I can see this won’t be for everyone but I really loved it. Just glorious.