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A vivid account of a post-pandemic year a century ago when Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered, the BBC set up and James Joyce’s Ulysses deridedPublishers are getting ready to celebrate the centenary of 1922, the year the world emerged from war and pandemic to become recognisably modern. It was then that James Joyce’s Ulysses and TS Eliot’s The Waste Land were published, the USSR and the BBC were established and Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered. If this last example seems slight by comparison, it is worth remembering that the craze for Egyptian hieroglyphics fed directly into art deco, the visual style that is synonymous with the “roaring 20s” to this day.Nick Rennison has sensibly got in early, bringing out his Scenes from a Turbulent Year while other authors and publishers are still putting the finishing touches to their manuscripts. In this enjoyable slice of popular history, he assembles a month-by-month almanac, including all the most notable moments from science, politics, art and culture. It makes for some unlikely associations. So, for example, January 1922 saw the second trial of Hollywood comedy actor Fatty Arbuckle for rape and manslaughter, the first successful treatment of diabetics with insulin, the death of Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica and Edith Sitwell’s debut performance of Façade to William Walton’s score. (“Drivel,” snorted the critics of a work that would become a much-loved standard throughout the 20th century). Continue reading...