Paths to Contemporary French Literature

Paths to Contemporary French Literature PDF Author: John Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351500619
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Praised for his independence, curiosity, intimate knowledge of French literature, and sharp reader's eye, John Taylor is a writer-critic who is naturally skeptical of literary fashions, overnight reputations, and readymade academic categories. Here he examines various genres of politically committed literature (such as Jean Hatzfeld's "narratives" about Rwanda or Tchicaya U Tam'si's verse), some overlooked fiction, and several provocative experiments with literary form (ranging from the poetry of Jean-Paul Michel and Marie etienne to the "three-line novels" of Felix Feneon).Taylor continues to reveal the remarkable resourcefulness of French writing. Besides drawing attention to authors (like Dai Sijie or Albert Cossery) who have come to French from other languages, he has added younger novelists to his critical panorama.Challenging persistent cliches and recovering deserving voices from unjust neglect, Taylor's vision of French literature conjures up the image of a vital nexus. Poetry crisscrosses with prose, writers from one generation meet up with those from the next or the previous one, while the philosophical ideas underlying French writing are scrutinized. This is an essential guide to the realities of French culture today.

Paths to Contemporary French Literature

Paths to Contemporary French Literature PDF Author: John Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351500619
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book Here

Book Description
Praised for his independence, curiosity, intimate knowledge of French literature, and sharp reader's eye, John Taylor is a writer-critic who is naturally skeptical of literary fashions, overnight reputations, and readymade academic categories. Here he examines various genres of politically committed literature (such as Jean Hatzfeld's "narratives" about Rwanda or Tchicaya U Tam'si's verse), some overlooked fiction, and several provocative experiments with literary form (ranging from the poetry of Jean-Paul Michel and Marie etienne to the "three-line novels" of Felix Feneon).Taylor continues to reveal the remarkable resourcefulness of French writing. Besides drawing attention to authors (like Dai Sijie or Albert Cossery) who have come to French from other languages, he has added younger novelists to his critical panorama.Challenging persistent cliches and recovering deserving voices from unjust neglect, Taylor's vision of French literature conjures up the image of a vital nexus. Poetry crisscrosses with prose, writers from one generation meet up with those from the next or the previous one, while the philosophical ideas underlying French writing are scrutinized. This is an essential guide to the realities of French culture today.

As Time Goes By

As Time Goes By PDF Author: Joy Charnley
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443864862
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Academic work in a range of disciplines has been making an important contribution to the fraught and confusing debate around ageing, and through writers’ consciousness and experience, literature, just like economics, psychology, history and sociology, can provide valuable insights into the attitudes and prejudices prevalent in society. The present volume adds to this burgeoning field by providing a wide spectrum of literary analyses drawing on a range of approaches (Freud, Lacan, Kristeva and feminist theory, amongst others) and covering a broad geographical area (France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland, in addition to Francophone Canada and Morocco). Major writers such as Balzac, Cervantes, Goethe, Mann and Zola are discussed here, as well as a number of important twentieth-century writers (Ben Jelloun, Cixous, Doubrovsky, Ernaux, Roy and Ungaretti) and less well-known figures (Carvalho, Châtelet and Fleutiaux). Within the broad themes which structure the volume, many others also emerge, overlapping and often recurring in several sections. These constant echoes between essays remind us that, whatever the geographical location or the period in history, similar issues remain pertinent across time and space, whether it be family relations, generational solidarity, sadness and loneliness, memory and dementia, class differences, gender differences or sexuality. Together, these essays contribute to the existing body of critical work by providing a series of portraits of what age is, has been and might be in the future. Collectively they demonstrate once more the power of literature to reflect or even prefigure social trends, encouraging us to consider carefully what we think, how we live and how we might shape our future societies.

Trio

Trio PDF Author: Robert Pinget
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9781564784087
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Trio marks the first time these three shorter Pinget works are collected in a single volume. From the sublime surrealism of Between Fantoine and Agapa, through the Faulknerian take on rural life in That Voice, to the musical rhythm and flow of Passacaglia, this collection charts the varied career of one of the French New Novel's true luminaries.The space between the fictional towns of Fantoine and Agapa is akin to Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County: an area where provincialism is neither romanticized nor parodied; where intrigue--often violent intrigue--confronts the bucolic ideal held both by insiders and outsiders; and where reality is shaped not by events, but by talk and gossip, by insinuation and conjecture. Written over the course of his career, these three novels are by turns hilarious and dark, surreal and painstakingly accurate; together they demonstrate the consistent quality of Pinget's versatility.

At Seventy

At Seventy PDF Author: May Sarton
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497685443
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Winner of the American Book Award: May Sarton’s honest and engrossing journal of her seventieth year, spent living and working on the Maine coast. May Sarton’s journals are a captivating look at a rich artistic life. In this, her ode to aging, she savors the daily pleasures of tending to her garden, caring for her dogs, and entertaining guests at her beloved Maine home by the sea. Her reminiscences are raw, and her observations are infused with the poetic candor for which Sarton—over the course of her decades-long career—became known. An enlightening glimpse into a time—the early 1980s—and an age, At Seventy is at once specific and universal, providing a unique window into septuagenarian life that readers of all generations will enjoy. At times mournful and at others hopeful, this is a beautiful memoir of the year in which Sarton, looking back on it all, could proclaim, “I am more myself than I have ever been.”

The Inquisitory

The Inquisitory PDF Author: Robert Pinget
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9781564783271
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
The Inquisitory consists entirely of the interrogation of an old, deaf servant regarding unspecified crimes that may or may not have taken place at his master's French chateau. The servant's replies - which are by turns comic, straightforward, angry, nostalgic, and disingenuous - hint at a variety of seedy events, including murder, orgies, tax fraud, and drug deals. Of course, the servant wasn't involved with any of these activities - if the reader chooses to believe him. In trying to convince the inquisitor of his innocence, the servant creates a web of half-truths, vague references, and glaring inconsistencies amid "forgotten" details, indicating that he may know more than he's letting on.

Barbara Wright

Barbara Wright PDF Author: Debra Kelly
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789861
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
Legendary publisher and writer John Calder said of Barbara Wright that she was "the most brilliant, conscientious and original translator of 20th century French literature." Wright introduced to an English-speaking readership and audience some of the most innovative French literature of the last hundred years: a world without Alfred Jarry's Ubu, Raymond Queneau'sZazie, and Robert Pinget's Monsieur Songe scarcely bears thinking about. This wonderful collection of texts about and by Barbara Wright—including work by David Bellos, Breon Mitchell, and Nick Wadley, as well as a previously unpublished screenplay written and translated by Wright in collaboration with Robert Pinget—begins the work of properly commemorating a figure toward whom all of English letters owes an unpayable debt.

The Lecture

The Lecture PDF Author: Lydie Salvayre
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
ISBN: 9781564783516
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
"One of the oddest characters in contemporary fiction, the lecturer can't help but digress about his sad life in the midst of his speech, although he's too self-deluded to realize quite how sad it is. Salvayre's The Lecture is an example of political double-talk and misogyny run wild."--Jacket.

Monsieur Songe

Monsieur Songe PDF Author: Robert Pinget
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description


Autobiography and Independence

Autobiography and Independence PDF Author: Debra Kelly
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 9780853236597
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
InAutobiography and Independence, Debra Kelly examines four accomplished Francophone North African writers—Mouland Feroan, Assia Djebar, Albert Memmi, and Abdelkeacute;bir Khatibi—to illuminate the complex relationship of a writer's work to cultural and national histories. The legacies of colonialism and the difficulties of nationalism run throughout all four writers' works, yet in their striking individuality, the four demonstrate the ways in which such heritages are refracted through a writer's personal history. This book will be of interest to students of Francophone literature, colonialism, and African history and culture.

Paths to Contemporary French Literature, Volume 2

Paths to Contemporary French Literature, Volume 2 PDF Author: John Taylor
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 0765803704
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Although the great French novelists of the last two centuries are widely read in America, there is a widespread notion that little of importance has happened in French literature since the heyday of Sartre, Camus, and the nouveau roman. Curious American readers seeking new, up-to-date information and analyses will find in Paths to Contemporary French Literature a stimulating and much-needed guide to the major currents of one of the worldas great literatures. This critical panorama of contemporary French literature introduces English-language readers to over fifty important writers and poets. Emphasizing authors who are admired by their peers (as opposed to those with overnight reputations), John Taylor offers a compelling insideras view.