Confessions of a Young Novelist

Confessions of a Young Novelist PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058690
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Umberto Eco published his first novel, The Name of the Rose, in 1980, when he was nearly fifty. In these “confessions,” the author, now in his late seventies, looks back on his long career as a theorist and his more recent work as a novelist, and explores their fruitful conjunction. He begins by exploring the boundary between fiction and nonfiction—playfully, seriously, brilliantly roaming across this frontier. Good nonfiction, he believes, is crafted like a whodunnit, and a skilled novelist builds precisely detailed worlds through observation and research. Taking us on a tour of his own creative method, Eco recalls how he designed his fictional realms. He began with specific images, made choices of period, location, and voice, composed stories that would appeal to both sophisticated and popular readers. The blending of the real and the fictive extends to the inhabitants of such invented worlds. Why are we moved to tears by a character’s plight? In what sense do Anna Karenina, Gregor Samsa, and Leopold Bloom “exist”? At once a medievalist, philosopher, and scholar of modern literature, Eco astonishes above all when he considers the pleasures of enumeration. He shows that the humble list, the potentially endless series, enables us to glimpse the infinite and approach the ineffable. This “young novelist” is a master who has wise things to impart about the art of fiction and the power of words.

Confessions of a Young Novelist

Confessions of a Young Novelist PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058690
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Umberto Eco published his first novel, The Name of the Rose, in 1980, when he was nearly fifty. In these “confessions,” the author, now in his late seventies, looks back on his long career as a theorist and his more recent work as a novelist, and explores their fruitful conjunction. He begins by exploring the boundary between fiction and nonfiction—playfully, seriously, brilliantly roaming across this frontier. Good nonfiction, he believes, is crafted like a whodunnit, and a skilled novelist builds precisely detailed worlds through observation and research. Taking us on a tour of his own creative method, Eco recalls how he designed his fictional realms. He began with specific images, made choices of period, location, and voice, composed stories that would appeal to both sophisticated and popular readers. The blending of the real and the fictive extends to the inhabitants of such invented worlds. Why are we moved to tears by a character’s plight? In what sense do Anna Karenina, Gregor Samsa, and Leopold Bloom “exist”? At once a medievalist, philosopher, and scholar of modern literature, Eco astonishes above all when he considers the pleasures of enumeration. He shows that the humble list, the potentially endless series, enables us to glimpse the infinite and approach the ineffable. This “young novelist” is a master who has wise things to impart about the art of fiction and the power of words.

The Confessions of Young Nero

The Confessions of Young Nero PDF Author: Margaret George
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698184769
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling and legendary author of Helen of Troy and Elizabeth I now turns her gaze on Emperor Nero, one of the most notorious and misunderstood figures in history. Built on the backs of those who fell before it, Julius Caesar’s imperial dynasty is only as strong as the next person who seeks to control it. In the Roman Empire no one is safe from the sting of betrayal: man, woman—or child. As a boy, Nero’s royal heritage becomes a threat to his very life, first when the mad emperor Caligula tries to drown him, then when his great aunt attempts to secure her own son’s inheritance. Faced with shocking acts of treachery, young Nero is dealt a harsh lesson: it is better to be cruel than dead. While Nero idealizes the artistic and athletic principles of Greece, his very survival rests on his ability to navigate the sea of vipers that is Rome. The most lethal of all is his own mother, a cold-blooded woman whose singular goal is to control the empire. With cunning and poison, the obstacles fall one by one. But as Agrippina’s machinations earn her son a title he is both tempted and terrified to assume, Nero’s determination to escape her thrall will shape him into the man he was fated to become—an Emperor who became legendary. With impeccable research and captivating prose, The Confessions of Young Nero is the story of a boy’s ruthless ascension to the throne. Detailing his journey from innocent youth to infamous ruler, it is an epic tale of the lengths to which man will go in the ultimate quest for power and survival.

Confessions of a Young Man

Confessions of a Young Man PDF Author: George Moore
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Confessions of a Young Man Illustrated

Confessions of a Young Man Illustrated PDF Author: George Moore
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Confessions of a Young Man is a memoir by Irish novelist George Moore who spent about 15 years in his teens and 20s in Paris and later London as a struggling artist. The book is notable as being one of the first English writings which named important emerging French Impressionists; for itsLiterarycriticism; and depictions of bohemian life in Paris during the 1870s and 1880s.

Tru Confessions

Tru Confessions PDF Author: Janet Tashjian
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312372736
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Enough about you. Let's talk about me.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady PDF Author: Florence King
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466816260
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady is Florence King's classic memoir of her upbringing in an eccentric Southern family, told with all the uproarious wit and gusto that has made her one of the most admired writers in the country. Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, "no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street."

Confessions of a High School Disaster

Confessions of a High School Disaster PDF Author: Emma Chastain
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481488759
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
"Chloe Snow chonicles a year in her high school life, sharing the highs and lows of family, friendship, school, and love"--

How Not to Write a Novel

How Not to Write a Novel PDF Author: David Armstrong
Publisher: Allison & Busby
ISBN: 0749011351
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Every week, agents and publishers in this country receive hundreds of manuscripts from would-be authors. Of these, fewer than one per cent will make it into print. David Armstrong was one of the one per-centers, his first crime novel plucked from the slush pile at a major publisher and published to acclaim. So far, so good. But it rapidly became clear to Armstrong that being a published novelist is not always as glamorous as it seems from the outside. There are the depressing, ill-attended readings, the bitchy writers' conventions, the bookshops who have never heard of you and don't stock your book. All of these will be familiar to any writer who, like Armstrong, falls into to the category euphemistically known in publishing as 'midlist'. The reality is that for every JK Rowling, there are 1,000 David Armstrongs; for every writer who is put up in a five-star hotel and flies first class courtesy of their publisher, there are 1,000 who sleep on friend's floors during book tours and dine at motorway service stations...Witty, acerbic and wise, How Not to Write a Novel lifts the lid on publishing. From agents to editors, publicists to sales reps, it explains the publishing process - and how to survive it - from the point of view of a non-bestselling writer. A unique book, it is essential reading for anyone who dreams of getting their novel published - and for anyone curious about the inside workings of the publishing game.

The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist

The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist PDF Author: Orhan Pamuk
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307745252
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
From the Nobel Prize-winning novelist and the acclaimed author of My Name is Red—an inspired, thoughtful, and deeply personal book of essays about reading and writing novels. In this fascinating set of essays, based on the talks he delivered at Harvard University as part of the distinguished Norton Lecture series, Pamuk presents a comprehensive and provocative theory of the novel and the experience of reading. Drawing on Friedrich Schiller’s famous distinction between “naïve” writers—those who write spontaneously—and “sentimental” writers—those who are reflective and aware—Pamuk reveals two unique ways of processing and composing the written word. He takes us through his own literary journey and the beloved novels of his youth to describe the singular experience of reading. Unique, nuanced, and passionate, this book will be beloved by readers and writers alike.

On the Shoulders of Giants

On the Shoulders of Giants PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674242270
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A posthumous collection of essays by one of our greatest contemporary thinkers that provides a towering vision of Western culture. In Umberto Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose, Nicholas of Morimondo laments, “We no longer have the learning of the ancients, the age of giants is past!” To which the protagonist, William of Baskerville, replies: “We are dwarfs, but dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of those giants, and small though we are, we sometimes manage to see farther on the horizon than they.” On the Shoulders of Giants is a collection of essays based on lectures Eco famously delivered at the Milanesiana Festival in Milan over the last fifteen years of his life. Previously unpublished, the essays explore themes he returned to again and again in his writing: the roots of Western culture and the origin of language, the nature of beauty and ugliness, the potency of conspiracies, the lure of mysteries, and the imperfections of art. Eco examines the dynamics of creativity and considers how every act of innovation occurs in conversation with a superior ancestor. In these playful, witty, and breathtakingly erudite essays, we encounter an intellectual who reads comic strips, reflects on Heraclitus, Dante, and Rimbaud, listens to Carla Bruni, and watches Casablanca while thinking about Proust. On the Shoulders of Giants reveals both the humor and the colossal knowledge of a contemporary giant.