Book picks similar to
Marcel Proust and Deliverance from Time by Germaine Brée
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literary-criticism
Hell
Henri Barbusse - 1908
Alternately voyeur and seer, he obsessively studies the private moments and secret activities of his neighbors: childbirth, first love, marriage, betrayal, illness and death all present themselves to him through this spy hole. Decades ahead of its time, "Hell" shocked and scandalized the reviewing public when first released in English in 1966. Even so, the New Republic praised "the beauty of the book's nervous yet fluid rhythms... The book sweeps away life's illusions."
A Handbook for the Perfect Adventurer
Pierre Mac Orlan - 1920
"It must be established as a law that adventure in itself does not exist," Mac Orlan stipulates. "Adventure is in the mind of the one who pursues it, and no sooner is he able to touch it with his finger than it vanishes, to reappear much farther off in another form, at the limits of the imagination." This handbook outlines two classes of adventurer: the active adventurer (sailors, soldiers, criminals) and the passive adventurer (sedentary parasites who draw sustenance from the exploits of the former). Roaming from battlefields to pirate ships to port-town taverns, and offering advice on reading, traveling and eroticism, Mac Orlan's "Handbook" is ultimately a how-to manual for the imagination, and a formulation of the stark choice all would-be adventurers must face: to live or write.Generally known as the author of "Le Quai des brumes" (the basis for Marcel Carne's film of the same name), Pierre Mac Orlan (1882-1970) was a prolific writer of absurdist tales, adventure novels, flagellation erotica and essays, as well as the composer of a trove of songs made famous by the likes of Juliette Greco. A member of both the Academie Goncourt and the College de 'Pataphysique, Mac Orlan was admired by everyone from Raymond Queneau and Boris Vian to Andre Malraux and Guy Debord.
The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading
Phyllis Rose - 2014
Hoping to explore the “real ground of literature,” she reads her way through a somewhat randomly chosen shelf of fiction, from LEQ to LES.The shelf has everything Rose could wish for—a classic she has not read, a remarkable variety of authors, and a range of literary styles. The early nineteenth-century Russian classic A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov is spine by spine with The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Stories of French Canadian farmers sit beside those about aristocratic Austrians. California detective novels abut a picaresque novel from the seventeenth century. There are several novels by a wonderful, funny, contemporary novelist who has turned to raising dogs because of the tepid response to her work.In The Shelf, Rose investigates the books on her shelf with exuberance, candor, and wit while pondering the many questions her experiment raises and measuring her discoveries against her own inner shelf—those texts that accompany us through life. “Fairly sure that no one in the history of the world has read exactly this series of novels,” she sustains a sense of excitement as she creates a refreshingly original and generous portrait of the literary enterprise.
How to Be Alone
Jonathan Franzen - 2002
Reprinted here for the first time is Franzen's controversial l996 investigation of the fate of the American novel in what became known as "the Harper's essay," as well as his award-winning narrative of his father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease, and a rueful account of his brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author.
Jane Austen, or the Secret of Style
D.A. Miller - 2003
Here, the stigmatized condition of a spinster; there, a writer's unequalled display of absolute, impersonal authority. In between, the secret work of Austen's style: to keep at bay the social doom that would follow if she ever wrote as the person she is.For no Jane Austen could ever appear in Jane Austen. Amid happy wives and pathetic old maids, we see no successfully unmarried woman, and, despite the multitude of girls seeking to acquire "accomplishments," no artist either. What does appear is a ghostly No One, a narrative voice unmarked by age, gender, marital status, all the particulars that make a person--and might make a person peculiar. The Austen heroine must suppress her wit to become the one and not the other, to become, that is, a person fit to be tied in a conjugal knot. But for herself, Austen refuses personhood, with all its constraints and needs, and disappears into the sourceless anonymity of her style. Though often treasured for its universality, that style marks the specific impasse of a writer whose self-representation is impossible without the prospect of shame.D.A. Miller argues this case not only through the close reading that Austen's style always demands, but also through the close writing, the slavish imitation, that it sometimes inspires.
The Mysteries of Paris Volume 2
Eugène Sue - 1842
Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1903. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. THE ARKEST. "Good gracious M. Rodolph," exclaimed Rigolette, running in, pale and trembling, " a commissary of police and the guard have come here." "Divine justice watches over me," said M. Pipelet, in a transport of pious gratitude. "They have come to arrest Cabrion; unfortunately it is too late." A commissary of police, wearing his tricoloured scarf around his waist underneath his black coat, entered the lodge. His countenance was impressive, magisterial, and serious. "M. le Commissaire is too late; the malefactor has escaped," said M. Pipelet, in a sorrowful voice; "but I will give you his description, --villainous smile, impudent look, insulting --" "Of whom do you speak?" inquired the magistrate. "Of Cabrion, M. le Commissaire; but, perhaps, if you make all haste, it is not yet too late to catch him," added M. Pipelet. "I know nothing about any Cabrion," said the magistrate, impatiently. "Does one Jerome Morel, a working lapidary, live in this house?" "Yes, mon commissaire," said Madame Pipelet, putting herself into a military attitude. "Conduct me to his apartment." "Morel, the lapidary " said the porteress, excessively surprised;" why, he is the mildest lambkin in the world. He is incapable of --" "Does Jerome Morel live here or not?" "He lives here, sir, with his family, in one of the attics." "Lead me to his attic." Then, addressing himself to a man who accompanied him, the magistrate said: "Let two of the municipal guard wait below, and not leave the entrance. Send Justing for a hackney-coach." The man left the lodge to put these orders in execution. "Now," continued the magistrate, addressing himself to M. Pipelet, " lead me to Morel." "If it is all the same to you, mon commissaire, I will do that for Alfred; he is indisposed from Cabrion...
The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon
Daniel Farson - 1993
In this, the first-ever book to be written about him, Daniel Farson, friend and confidant to Bacon for over forty years, gives a highly personal, first-hand account of the man as he knew him. From his sexual adventures to his rise from obscurity to international fame, Farson gives us unique insight into Bacon's genius.
Feel Free: Essays
Zadie Smith - 2018
She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat."Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.
Introducing Literary Criticism: A Graphic Guide
Owen Holland - 2016
A brand new literary title in the renowned graphic novel-style of the Introducing Graphic Guide series.From Plato to Virginia Woolf, Structuralism to Practical Criticism, Introducing Literary Criticism charts the history and development of literary criticism into a rich and complex discipline.Tackling disputes over the value and meaning of literature, and exploring theoretical and practical approaches, this unique illustrated guide will help readers of all levels to get more out of their reading.Owen Holland is a doctoral student at St Catharine's college, Cambridge, where he teaches the history of literary criticism.
Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread
Michiko Kakutani - 2020
It can give us an understanding of lives very different from our own, and a sense of the shared joys and losses of human experience." Readers will discover novels and memoirs by some of the most gifted writers working today; favorite classics worth reading or rereading; and nonfiction works, both old and new, that illuminate our social and political landscape and some of today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to medicine to the consequences of digital innovation. There are essential works in American history (The Federalist Papers, The Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.); books that address timely cultural dynamics (Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale); classics of children's literature (the Harry Potter novels, Where the Wild Things Are); and novels by acclaimed contemporary writers like Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Ian McEwan.With richly detailed illustrations by lettering artist Dana Tanamachi that evoke vintage bookplates, Ex Libris is an impassioned reminder of why reading matters more than ever.
Visions Before Midnight
Clive James - 1977
It needs flannel in lengthy widths, and it's here that Harry and Alan come through like a whole warehouse full of pyjamas) to the 1976 Olympics ('Jenkins has a lot to do' was a new way of saying that our man, of whom we had such high hopes, was not going to pull out the big one). In between we have 'War and Peace' (Tolstoy makes television history), the Royal Wedding (Dimbling suavely, Tom Fleming introduced the scene), the Winter Olympics (unintelligibuhl), the Eurovision Song Contest (The Hook of their song lasted a long time in the mind, like a kick in the knee. You could practically hear the Koreans singing it. 'Waterloo . . .' ), and much more.
The Library at Night
Alberto Manguel - 2006
He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria and personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, a library of books never written.
Irène
Pierre Lemaitre - 2006
Worse still, the press seem to have it in for him – his every move is headline news. When he discovers that the killer has killed before – that each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel – the fourth estate are quick to coin a nickname… The Novelist…With both men in the public eye, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other. There can only be one winner – whoever has the least to lose…
Hemingway: The Writer as Artist
Carlos Baker - 1952
Professor Baker has also written two new chapters in which he discusses Hemingway's two posthumously published books, A Movable Feast and Islands in the Stream.CONTENTS: Introduction. I. The Slopes of Montparnasse. II. The Making of Americans. III. The Way It Was. IV. The Wastelanders. V. The Mountain and the Plain. VI. The First Forty-Five Stories. VII. The Spanish Earth. VIII. The Green Hills of Africa. IX. Depression at Key West. X. The Spanish Tragedy. XI. The River and the Trees. XII. The Ancient Mariner. XIII. The Death of the Lion. XIV. Looking Backward. XV. Islands in the Stream.
Both Flesh and Not: Essays
David Foster Wallace - 2012
Here, Wallace turns his critical eye with equal enthusiasm toward Roger Federer and Jorge Luis Borges; Terminator 2 and The Best of the Prose Poem; the nature of being a fiction writer and the quandary of defining the essay; the best underappreciated novels and the English language's most irksome misused words; and much more.Both Flesh and Not restores Wallace's essays as originally written, and it includes a selection from his personal vocabulary list, an assembly of unusual words and definitions.