Review: Terry Eagleton’s 'A Death of One’s Own' Meditates on Mortality

A Death of One’s Own by Terry Eagleton review – meditations on arriving at a full stop

The literary critic brings his vast reading to bear on life’s most inescapable fact Terry Eagleton is not a fan of sloppy thinking, especially when it comes to the granite fact of death. He particularly doesn’t like the attitude of Dylan Thomas who famously urged his ailing father to “not go gentle into that good night”. If the “night” – death – is so “good” then why, asks Eagleton reasonably, would Thomas want his dad to dawdle? Shouldn’t DJ Thomas, rather, be encouraged to trot towards his ...

By Kathryn Hughes