He drank a liter of tequila, smoked Congolese grass, snorted cocaine...―from Crazy for VincentCrazy for Vincent begins with the death of the figure it fixates upon: Vincent, a skateboarding, drug-addled, delicate “monster” of a boy in whom the narrator finds a most sublime beauty. By turns tender and violent, Vincent drops in and out of French writer and photographer Hervé Guibert's life over the span of six years (from 1982, when he first met Vincent as a fifteen-year-old teenager, to 1988). After Vincent's senseless death, the narrator embarks on a reconnaissance writing mission to retrieve the Vincent that had entered, elevated, and emotionally eviscerated his life, working chronologically backward from the death that opens the text. Assembling Vincent's fragmentary appearances in his journal, the author seeks to understand what Vincent's presence in his life had been: a passion? a love? an erotic obsession? or an authorial invention? A parallel inquiry could be made into the book that results: Is it diary, memoir, poem, fiction? Autopsy, crime scene, hagiography, hymn? Crazy for Vincent is a text the very nature of which is as untethered as desire itself.

    The entries—full of marvelous ideas, outlines for works never written, responses to the works of others, and much more—reveal many rarely glimpsed sides of the private, as well as public, man. What did he really think of the students who came to him for instruction in black magic? What were his private reflections on feminism, student drug use, the sexual revolution, the nature of American scholars and scholarship? Who were his best friends, why did he enjoy their company, and why did he shun the company of others?Quite apart from the personal, biographical interest the journal holds, it is a document of cultural and intellectual significance. Eliade remarks on such colleagues and friends as Jung, Dumézil, Ricoeur, Bellow, and Ionesco. Moreover, the period covered encompasses Eliade's most active years as a teacher, and the journal beautifully reflects his developing views on religion, history, and the nature of academic culture. Bits and pieces of Eliade's past life are juxtaposed with thoughts about ongoing projects and work yet to be undertaken as well as with anecdotes of his travels and comments on world events.A genuine treat for Eliade readers and those interested in history of religions, Journal III provides new perspectives on many of Eliade's other works—the History of Religious Ideas, Ordeal by Labyrinth, the Autobiography. At the same time the journal is a mature scholar's record of the aftermath of the 1960s, a turbulent period that profoundly affected American university life. As such, these writings hold valuable insights into not only the life and work of one man but also the cultural history of an entire era.

    These innovatively designed, affordably priced, compact paperbacks bring ideas to life and amplify our understanding of civilization in a new way.

    The author's expansion, revision and correction of the work were cut short by his death in 1922, and sixty-six years later editors are still producing variants of the last three volumes based on working notebooks. The novel's structure was compared by its author to that of a cathedral, and its status is that of one of the greatest literary landmarks of the twentieth century. Sheila Stern's study begins with a summary of the whole novel and goes on to give an account of the activity of reading as part of its subject-matter. Two chapters are devoted to Swann's Way itself, with close attention to the opening pages, and to such topics as memory, time, imagery and names. The book's reception in various Western literatures is discussed, and there is a guide to further reading.

    The outside world, therefore, has had very limited knowledge of the techniques used by the masters of this art.The publication of this English-language edition of La Marquetrie gives amateurs, art historians, creative woodworkers, and conservators access to an invaluable body of knowledge of the techniques of marquetry, covering the history of the craft as well as explanations of how a marqueter's studio isorganized and the materials, instruments, drawing, preparation, and procedures used in the craft. It combines a thorough explanation of the craft techniques with detailed analysis of period examples, thereby giving readers a better understanding of marquetry pieces and new insights into shoppractices. The book is an invaluable resource both for the art historian and the practicing craftsperson.

    As one of the most individualistic of the colorful French Romantics, the details of Nerval's life have passed into legend, as writers and commentators have served up any number of versions of his mysterious love affair with the actress Jenny Colon-not to mention his famous habit of walking a lobster on a pale blue leash through the gardens of the Palais Royal. Soon after the completion of his novella Sylvie in 1853, Nerval began, under advice from his doctor, an extended personal journal/essay chronicling his psychic experiences and visions. What emerged from these writings is Aurélia, a masterpiece in the literature of dreams and hallucinations, and one of the most remarkable prose works of nineteenth century French literature.