Puppy Love: Barry Emslie is unimpressed by an artless apologia for Wagner

Michael Tanner is a fan. He loves Wagner. And this is his principal virtue. But it is also the source of the difficulties that bedevil his new book. For Tanner’s love is true love. Notwithstanding his intelligence and erudition, he is like a blindly infatuated teenager, even though he is beginning to suspect that the beloved is not in every sense kosher and will sometimes leave you standing on the street corner holding a bunch of fading flowers while he is off with the boys behaving badly. Nonetheless this Faber and Faber pocket ‘Guide’ has (almost) everything an introduction should have: a chronology of the life, a short biography, an account of the ‘operas’, a (reluctantly written) chapter on anti-Semitism, and a section on recommended literature, CDs and DVDs.