Lewis was a great writer on early literature though. 'The Discarded Image' is still very hard to better and 'The Allegory of Love' remains a wonderful thing.

It's the same with composers though, isn't it? Britten the paedophile, Gesualdo the double murderer and Puccini the fascist fellow traveller............

With music it's much easier to put the personality of the artist to one side.

Not sure about that. I suspect that I find it the other way about- novelists impinge on my consciousness less than their writing, but composers, no. I loathe Wagner only partly because I don't much like his overblown music and even though Daniel Barenboim states quite rightly that the man is anti semitic but his music isn't.

Gesualdo's heartbreaking music at least shows a man attempting to atone for what he has done- it can literally tear me apart at times.

Perhaps all we're doing here is exhibiting personal bias. Literature means a great deal more to me than music does.

Could be- I'm the other way about unless it's poetry or old and middle English writing.

I'd never heard of Gesualdo before now and looked him up...sweet Jesus on a bicycle. That's one hell of a story. Thank you for that! Must check out his music.

CS Lewis is actually quite high on the list of writers I'd like to take afternoon tea with.

Writers who creep me out a bit although I admire them: Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh.

I wouldn't have wanted to deal with Waugh IRL but I find his writerly persona quite agreeable.