european

The famous Indian classic, Kautilya's 'Arthasastra,' a treatise which deals with the attainment of worldly ends, distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom - Straight and Crooked. To the former belong (to use Western examples) such works as 'The Imitation of Christ' by Thomas a Kempis, a work which teaches how, ideally, the virtuous should live, while overlooking the fact that often it would be extremely impractical and socially disastrous to live in such a way.

The second class of books, those which teach the art of 'Crooked Wisdom,' is exemplified in the East by Kautilya's 'Arthasastra' itself, and in the West by such works as Balthasar Gracian's 'The Art of Worldly Wisdom,' Francesco Guicciardini's 'Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman' (Ricordi), and by the present collection of Maxims by La Rochefoucauld.

These books are both highly realistic and extremely practical, for they depict, not man as he is supposed to be, but man as he is with all his selfishness, stupidity, ambition, arrogance, malice, laziness and other imperfections, and they teach the art of how, not merely to survive, but even to thrive in the midst of our far from perfect fellow men and women. And, certainly in the case of La Rochefoucauld, this teaching is done with great precision and wit.

'Crooked Wisdom,' then, should not be understood as the product of a crooked mind, but as the clear-sighted wisdom one needs to survive in a world teeming with such minds, a world, as Tancock says, involved in a "sordid struggle of self-interests, a scramble for power, position, and influence in which the foulest motives and methods [are] decked with labels such as duty, honor, patriotism, and glory."

La Rochefoucauld seems to provoke two very different kinds of reaction. Fully paid up members of the rose-tinted spectacles club, are shocked and horrified by his portrait of man and society, and they tend to dislike both the man and his book.

The more realistically inclined, however, will savor his bite and wit and will readily acknowledge the self-evident truth of much if not all of what he says. The man was undoubtedly brilliant, not only in terms of the many profound insights he gave us - particularly those having to do with 'amour propre' or self-love - but also in terms of the skill with which he translated those insights into pithy and memorable maxims.

Tancock defines the maxim as the expression of "some thought about human motives or behavior in a form containing the maximum of clarity and TRUTH with the minimum of words arranged in the most striking and memorable order" (my caps). La Rochefoucauld's aim, in short, was simply to tell the truth, and to tell it for our benefit.

The maxim as a literary genre was cultivated in his milieu, and La Rochefoucauld's were polished to a high state of perfection, for they had to satisfy a critical and sophisticated audience. Seven years were devoted to refining them, during which the circle of his aristocratic friends and fellow habitues of Mmme de Sable's salon repeatedly offered advice and criticism.

The 'Maxims,' then, although the product of an individual sensibility, also become in a sense the product a collective effort, having emerged from a serious and civilized salon whose interests were psychological, literary, and linguistic. Anyone who feels inclined to dismiss them might keep this in mind.

I discovered La Rochefoucauld many years ago, and have always been a great admirer of his Maxims. Once read, they are never forgotten. They have a way of burrowing deeply into the mind, and the fact that they tend to recur in those moments when we are reflecting on life and mulling over our experiences seems to me a kind of proof of their veracity.

One that has always struck me as particularly significant is Maxim 22 : "Philosophy easily triumphs over past ills and ills to come, but present ills triumph over philosophy." Or, in the words of the Red Queen : "Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but no jam today." If such truths are not exactly cheering, this in no way detracts from their being true.

There is an enormous amount to be learned by the honest and open-minded reader from La Rochefoucauld's 'Maxims,' especially if they also have a sense of humor. But the 'Happy Days! Happy Sky!' school, whose main requirement of a writer would seem to be that he should confirm them in their beautiful illusions, would be wiser to look elsewhere for edification. La Rochefoucauld is not a writer for the faint of heart, nor for those without a sense of humor.

FERDINAND-DREYFUS, Un philanthrope d'autrefois: La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 1747-1827 (Paris, 1903). Translated to English. WJH (François-Alexandre-Frédéric).

Born at La Roche-Guyon, on 11 January, 1747; died at Paris, 27 March, 1827.

Opposed during the last years of the reign of Louis XV to the government of Maupeou, and the friend of all the reformers who surrounded Louis XVI, he owed to the influence of these economists the favour of the king. Having little liking for the military profession he devoted himself to scientific agriculture. During the rage for rural life which characterized the last years of the old regime, La Rochefoucauld made his estate at Liancourt an experimental station, whishing to improve both the soil and the peasantry. He introduced new methods of farming, founded the first model technical school in France (intended for the children of poor soldiers), and started two factories. Politically, he was a partisan of a democratic regime of which the king was to be the head, and throughout his life was faithful to this dream. Deputy for the nobility of Clermont in Beauvaisis at the States-General, he voted unhesitatingly for the "reunion of the three orders". it was he who in the night which followed the taking of the Bastille (14 July, 1789) roused Louis XVI, saying: "Sire, it is not a revolt, it is a revolution." He presided at the Constituent Assembly from 20 July to 3 August, 1789. On the night of 4 August he was one of the most enthusiastic in voting the abolition of titles of nobility and privileges. As grand master of the wardrobe he accompanied Louis XVI from Versailles to Paris on 5 and 6 October, 1789. As president of the committee of mendicancy, he made a supreme effort at the Constituent Assembly to organize public relief; he determined the extent and the limits of the rights of every citizen to assistance, determined the obligations of the State, and established a budget of State assistance which amounted annually to five millions and a half of francs, and which implied the national confiscation of hospital property, of ecclesiastical charitable property, and of the income from private foundations.

Liancourt is one of the most undiscerning representatives of the tendency which led the revolutionary state to destroy all collective forms of charity. Absolutely devoted to the person of Louis XVI as well as to the doctrines of the Revolution, he secured for himself in 1792 the lieutenancy of Normandy and Picardy, so as to prepare for the flight of the king as far as Rouen; but Louis XVI refused to place himself in the hands of constitutional deputies. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt emigrated shortly after 10 August, and resided in England until 1794, afterwards in the United States (1794-7). He took advantage of his residence in that country to write eight volumes on the United States to induce Washington to interfere in favour of Lafayette, and to gather ideas upon education and agriculture which he attempted later to apply in France. After 18 Brumaire, Napoleon authorized him to return to his Liancourt estate, which was restored to him. This former duke and peer gloried in being appointed, during the first Empire (1806), general inspector of the "Ecole des arts et métiers" at Châlons, of which his Liancourt school had been a forerunner. The book "Prisons de Philadelphie" which he composed in American and published in 1796, was meant to initiate a penitentiary reform in France at the Restoration in 1814 he begged but one favour-to be appointed prison inspector. In 1819 he became inspector of one of the twenty-eight arrondissements into which France was divided for penitentiary purposes. Louis XVIII gave him back neither the blue ribbon nor the mastership of the wardrobe, and in the House of Peers he sat with the opposition.

La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was the Franklin of the Revolution. An aristocrat by birth, a liberal in his views, in touch with all the representatives of the new commerce, he availed himself of this concurrence of circumstances to become the leader of every campaign for the people's protection and betterment; improvement of sanitary conditions in hospitals and foundling asylums, reorganization of schools according to the theories of Lancaster, whose book he had translated (Système anglais d'Instruction). He brought into use the methods of mutual instruction, and the pupils between 1816 and 1820 increased from 165,000 to 1,123,000. In 1818 he established the first savings bank and provident institution in Paris. On 19 Nov., 1821, he founded the Society of Christian Morals, over which he presided until 1825. It was at times looked upon with suspicion by the police of the Restoration. At its meetings were such men as Charles de Rémusat, Charles Coquerel, Guizot the Pedagogue, Oberlin, and Llorente, historian of the Inquisition. Broglie, Guizot, and Benjamin Constant were chairmen in turn, and Dufaure, Tocqueville, and Lamartine made there their maiden speeches. In these meetings provident institutions, rather than charitable ones, were discussed; slavery, lottery, gambling were combatted, and the matter of prison inspection was taken up. When La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt died, the Restoration would not permit the students of Châlons to carry his coffin, and the two chambers were much concerned over such extreme measures. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was a typical philanthropist, with all that this word implies of generous intentions and practical innovations; but also with a certain naïve pride, inherited from the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which led him to mistrust the charitable initiative of the Church, and to forget that the Church, the most perfect representative of the spirit of brotherhood, is still called in our modern society to win the victory for this spirit by putting it to practical uses, as she alone can.

These maxims, though brief, speak volumes about their author and the human condition. Francois duc do La Rouchefoucauld was cursed with a double nature which led him in his career as a courtier to, as Leonard Tanner puts it in his introduction "romantic self-dedication followed by bitter disillusion." After the fighting in Paris of 1652 he retired to a quiet life of contemplation and the society of such friends as Mme de Sevigne, who's letters give us such a vibrant window upon that age. It was during the many meetings he had with these friends that the first maxims evolved, and which he would continue to compose and perfect until his death in 1680. Nothing quite like them had ever existed before in European literature, and their precision and bleak though biting wit would shape the style of French letters for centuries to come. Essential reading for the student of the school of hard knocks.

The prize is an unfinished short story, "The Admirable Anglewing", at an immediate stage of note-taking on index cards. It's an intriguing dead end, identifiably a two-strata Nabokov, but with a strikingly scientific directness not elsewhere seen.

The bonus is an unpublished continuation of The Gift (tr. Dmitri Nabokov), which formulates a general expression of evolutionary theory in a clear and useful way, as it relates to a larger understanding of problems in taxonomy, probably omitted for the same reason "The Admirable Anglewing" was dropped.

Notes for The Butterflies Of Europe, much of Nabokov's lepidopterological work (Russia obviously lost a lepidopterist of genius), "butterfly" excerpts from the fiction, and much, much more.

"From the age of seven, everything I felt in connection with a rectangle of framed sunlight was dominated by a single passion," wrote Valdimir Nabokov. "If my first glance of the morning was for the sun, my first thought was for the butterflies it would engender." This was certainly an unusual way in which to view the world and one that not many readers, even those who adore Nabokov, have shared.

In fact, the ferocity of Nabokov's obsession with butterflies has only just begun to become clear with the publication of this gorgeous new book, a volume of heretofore unpublished and uncorrected writings on the subject of butterflies, edited by Nabokov's biographer Brian Boyd, together with Michael Pyle, an expert on butterflies. All translations were done by Nabokov's son, Dmitri, who has lavished his time and talent on his father's work for several decades.

Even those of us who cannot get enough of Nabokov and cannot praise him highly enough may find more than 700 densely-printed pages on the subject of butterflies a little much. As much as we love Nabokov, do we really want to read page after page of his highly technical descriptions of the various species of butterfly? Are these writings really important, from a scientific viewpoint? Is there any connection between Nabokov's passion for butterflies and his extraordinary fiction?

Although most people would probably answer "no" to the first two questions, the answer to the third is a surprisingly enthusiastic, "yes."

In his wonderful introduction, Boyd begins to elucidate the connections between Nabokov the writer and Nabokov the lepidopterist. We come to understand the novelist more completely and precisely by coming to understand that science that gave this unique author "a sense of reality that should not be confused with modern (or postmodern) epistemological nihilism."

It was while dissecting and deciphering his butterflies that Nabokov came to the conclusion that the more we inquire, the more we can discover, yet the more we discover, the more we find we do not know. The world, Nabokov says, is infinitely detailed, complex and deceptive.

Nabokov's important writings on butterflies are reproduced in this volume, but thankfully, in reduced form. And other kinds of writing by Nabokov have been blended over the scientific prose, beginning with the luminous meditation on butterflies from Chapter Six of Speak, Memory.

The poems, memoirs, letters, diary entries, criticism and fiction that make up this beautiful volume cover a period from 1941 to 1947, when Nabokov was at his most obsessive...as far as butterflies are concerned. This obsessiveness, however, is gorgeous to behold, as in a letter from Nabokov to Edmund Wilson about a lecture trip he made to Sweet Briar College. "The weather...was perfectly dreadful and except for a few Everes comyntas there was nothing on the wing." It always came down to butterflies.

Nabokov's interest in butterflies went far beyond sorting out and naming them. He was much more than a mere tabulator or categorizer. There is something exquisitely metaphysical, even mystical, about his approach to butterflies, something that also tells us of his quest to plumb the depths of nature's complexity. In his obsession, Nabokov sought to understand the sense of design that underlies the the physical world, and he also took enormous delight in the mysteries God chose to hide from human beings, leaving to them to seek them out or not.

As Boyd notes, Nabokov "preferred the small type to the main text, the obscure to the obvious, the thrill of finding for himself what was not common knowledge." His scientific writings overflow with minutiae, with obscure details, lovingly searched out, sorted, underlined, displayed. This preference for the complexity of life also underscores his writings, most notably his massive commentary on Pushkin's Onegin, the gorgeous and imaginative Pale Fire and Ada, a late masterpiece in which Nabokov's penchant for complexity reached spellbinding heights.

While only a small percentage of readers may want to study the scientific articles in this book, their very presence operates in the most subtle of ways to remind us that Nabokov, who referred to himself as VN, was also a student "of that other VN, Visible Nature." In his magnificent fiction, Nabokov offered the world a complete view of the complexity and richness of the human spirit. He might not have been so meticulous and so thorough were it not for his passion for the intricate world of butterflies, so beautifully on view in this book.

12 Exotic Brazilian Butterflies In a high Quality Frame 12.5" x 8.5" (Current bid: $65.00) *12 Exotic Brazilian Butterflies In a high Quality Frame 12.5" x 8.5" (Current bid: $65.00)

I sincerely hope that these other items you recommend to potential buyers of this book, are NOT butterflies that were caught in Brazil and shipped to the USA, nor ideally even butterflies breed in the US especially for the purpose of later gracing someone's wall. Not very environmentally sound at all if the former, and karmically, still just as bad if the latter. I do not think that the editors of Nabakov's Butterflies would support this at all, even if they are all avid butterfly enthusiasts. Leave the butterflies in peace!

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As a director of an history museum I am often asked to review books and such was the case of Hudgins recent book. Most Americans live so close to our many comforts that we really don't know how the rest of the world actually lives "a normal life." This books will truly open you to this experience. You will love her story of living in the "high rise village" and her story on wash day will make you really appreciate your laundry service broken buttons and all! I also loved her "food writer" description of the the sheep's head dinner. I hope we get more from this wonderful writer about living in Russia. Ted Peters, Director, Heritage Farmstead Museum.

The Other Side of Russia is part travel narrative, part social history, part memoir, part food writing. All these parts come together to make a delightful book.

Sharon Hudgins and her husband Tom spent a year and a half in post-Soviet Siberia teaching business management for the University of Maryland's overseas program. As peripatetic ex-patriates, they were familiar with unfamiliarity. But they were still not prepared for what Siberia had to offer them.

Join Sharon and Tom as they picnic with the Russian Mafiya, try to teach in an educational system that discourages questions and independent thinking, and ponder why a herd of horses is tangled in downtown rush hour traffic.

In "Absurdistan" it is just one perplexing thing after another. The electricity and water in their poorly-constructed apartment building work only intermittently. But in spite of such challenges, they make friends and entertain regularly. Cultural differences mean that the same friends who swoon over delicacies such as wafer-thin horse liver slices rolled with layers of horse fat, are unable to enjoy a Hudgins Tex-Mex feast.

Hudgins's previous work as a food and travel writer are evident here, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she writes fiction as well. The narrative is effortless and the stories she tells are by turns engaging and frightening.

From 1993 to 1995 Sharon Hudgins and her husband Tom lived and worked in post-Soviet Siberia, teaching at the university level through the University of Maryland's overseas programs. Originally from Texas, they had formerly worked in Germany, Spain, Greece, Japan, Korea under the same program in which he taught economics and she taught cross-cultural communication. Ms. Hudgins was particularly interested in Russia and her first master's degree was in Soviet-US relations. Both she and her husband had also learned the language, which made communication possible. This book is about the two years they spent in Siberia, specifically in Vladivostok and Irkutsk.

Ms. Hudgins' descriptions are rich with detail and the book is full of anecdotes that transported me immediately to the world she describes. I had always heard about the inefficiencies and breakdowns that were common in Russia. But after I read about their living conditions, the reality of it hit me immediately. In both cities they lived in high-rise apartment buildings, a commute of 1-1/2 hours each way to their jobs. These high rises were built with shoddy material and shoddy workmanship and were nowhere near food shopping or any other conveniences. The elevator never worked and they would have to walk up and down eight floors. But the worst thing of all was that heat, water and electricity were intermittent. They would suddenly be without heat in the middle of a Siberian winter. And even when the undrinkable and polluted water did come through their pipes, it could be cut off at a moment's notice. Same with electricity. As a result, they learned to be very creative, especially in their preparation of meals.

Speaking of food, in addition to all Ms. Hudgins' other accomplishments, she is also a trained food writer. And so her descriptions of food were some of the most memorable parts of the book. She and her husband are experienced gourmet cooks and befriended some Russian people who were also good cooks. There's a lot of interesting food descriptions and I was fascinated by the time and trouble they took to prepare even the simplest meal.

One incident in particular stays in my mind. They went out to countryside to buy fresh milk at a farmers' market. In this Siberian area the farmers milk their cows, fill a pail and leave it outside to freeze. However, they put a branch of a tree upright in the pail. Later, they lift the frozen milk out of the pail. It now looks like a huge popsicle. These "popsicles" are then loaded on a wagon and brought to market. The Hudgins purchased milk this way, carried it home on public transportation and it actually stayed frozen the whole time. Naturally they had to boil it before they used it. But they said it was delicious.

Another area which particularly interested me was the education system. Formerly, it was all about privilege and favoritism. People paid teachers for good grades. Bribes were considered a fact of life. And students themselves could never really understand the idea of plagiarism. But now that the Soviet era was over, this was gradually changing.

Yes, there were many challenges that the Hudgins had to meet. But they did it all with a spirit of good will and adventure. That's why this book was a pleasure to read. It's only 295 pages long, but so dense with insights and information, that I purposely took my time reading it.

I definitely identified with the Hudgins and know my understanding of Siberia has certainly been enriched. Highly recommended -- especially for armchair travelers such as myself.

Pronto! Writings from Rome--This collection of eclectic stories is reading entertainment at its best. From the first page to the last, each story taps into some of today's best writing talent. By the time you finish reading this collection of stories, you will feel like you have been right in Rome. This is a great read.

Pronto! Writings from Rome is a collection of short stories that make you feel as if you are there ... you can share the romance of the characters, setting, storyline. My favorite is "Steps". It is about a women we can all identify with... too much in a hurry to stop and smell the roses. The lesson she learns from strangers in a far away place speak quietly to her heart, calling out the person she truly is. Each piece is unique to itself; an enjoyable read!

Compiled and edited by John Tullius Pronto!: Writings From Rome is a unique and enthusiastically recommended selection of stories, essays, and poems all written by a gallery of distinguished contributors expressly by special request and on location within the boundaries of Rome. Embodying the ancient city of Rome in verse, majesty, sensory impressions and more, Pronto!: Writings From Rome is an impressive, moving and diverse offering showcasing dozens of literary snapshots into the life and lore of this great center of European and World history. Whether you are an armchair traveler who enjoys well crafted travelogues or are planning your own personal trip to the Eternal City, you will enjoy reading Pronto!: Writings From Rome.

An immensely gratifying experience.
With only modest ingredients (no truffles, foie gras, or caviar required) and more than a little patience and care, this book led me to culinary nirvana. There's nothing flashy going on here, and yet it's all entirely sublime. If 'dinner party recipe' cookbooks are starting to leave you feeling empty inside- here's the remedy. This book on the saucier's art just may be Sokolov's ticket into heaven.

I have owned this book for over 20 years and still use it regularly. I am not a professional, but I can make suaces on any give day that compare favorably -- or outshine -- what is served in many top restaurants. The book's menus are a bit dated, favoring adaptations of classics, but you miss the point if you doggedly follow them. This book teaches you about making a virtually endless arrray of sauces, using classical techniques. Once you master the "mother" or foundation suaces, there is no limit to what you can imitate or invent. There is real work involved here, and you may need some additional equipment, but you can be smart about it. I make huge batch of demi-glace each winter and freeze it in small portions, which translates into a one-year gold mine of possibilities. This is a great source; I can't imagine life without it.

I'm a culinary student here in New York and I picked up this book on the advise of my chef-instructor. I'm glad I listened to him. This book inspired my instructor to become a chef and to make almost every sauce in the book.

As for the book, it's pretty straightforward. It starts with a brief history of French sauces and then it pretty much goes right into the sauces. There are 5 mother sauces (Sauce Espagnole, Hollandaise, Béchamel, Velouté, and Tomato) and from these 5 you can make hundreds and hundreds of little derivative sauces. For example, take Sauce Espagnole (Brown Sauce). If you combine equal parts of Brown Sauce and Brown Veal Stock and let that reduce, you've got Demi-Glace (Half-Glaze). Now if you sauté some mushrooms, shallots, add some white wine, Madeira, some demi-glace and tomato, you've got Sauce Chasseur.

Here's another example. Take Velouté, add some mushroom liquid and a liaison, and mount the sauce with butter and you've got Sacue Allemande. Now take Sauce Allemande and add three simple ingredients and you've got Sauce Aux Champignons.

There are about 70 pages devoted to just brown sauces. The two most time consuming mother sauces to make is Sauce Espagnole and Velouté. Both require stock, however, Velouté is easy to make since it only takes 30 to 40 minutes to make once you have the stock. Sauce Espagnole, on the other hand, takes about 6 to 8 hours to make. Plus you need brown veal stock which takes anywhere from 8-11 hours to make.

As you can see it's pretty time consuming but if you take one weekend to make enough stock, once you're done you can freeze them in ice cube trays and take them as you need them. Remember the derivative sauces are really quick and simple, it's the mother sauces that take the most time.

If you're serious about cooking, I highly recommend this book.

Vargas Llosa gives us in this story a view of what can REALLY happen in the institutions of our countries and to what length one of them (the Peruvian army) would go to try to solve an internal affair. At first, when reading the reviews of "Pantaleón y las visitadoras" I thought it was all fiction, big was my surprise when the author tells the readers that this is a true story...

I absolutely loved this book; it mixes humor with something so serious as the Peruvian Army. The characters, especially "Pantita" y "Pochita", were great... It is incredible how Vargas Llosa wrote this particular novel, at first it was very difficult to read, the story jumps to different locations and times from one paragraph to the other and until I got accustomed to that writing it was hard to comprehend.

Captain Pantoja was send to the Amazon region to solve a "BIG" problem: the men serving there were out of control, their sexual desire was extremely high and because of that rapes and the pregnancies increased. He was order to create a "visitors program". This was a group of prostitutes which only purpose was to sexually serve the army station there, the mission was supposed to be "top secret", but when Pantoja organized the funeral of one the girls, everyone finds out, including his superiors, and that gets him transferred to another location.

I absolutely recommend this book, it is funny and unpredictable. One could learn a lot about how our countries work and the weird things that happen in them.

the whole trama keeps the reader'smind focus on it. You will enjoy the beauty of the play and will get to know the intrincated-simple life of a small town nearby the amazona region in peru. You will be enchanted by this book. read it.

Vargas Llosa lo dice y aqui esta la prueba. Una historia sobre la obediencia militar, los conflictos del ser humano y los trajines de un recto oficial para organizar un servicio de prostitutas con caracter militar para los soldados asignados en la Selva Peruana. Excelente novela.

Always my favorite painter, I was lucky enough to see an exposition of his work at the National Art Gallery in London in 1999 and his more famous works on constant display the Louvre in 2000. While his historical and allegorical paintings are impressive, his talent with portraiture is unmatched. I am particularly struck by the detailed imagery. It feels like you are looking at a photography, the realism is so intense. Yet as the book demonstrates, numerous studies were done before each painting, trying to determine how best to capture the subject.

The book is a large format, with numerous full color, full plate images. Personally, I did not find the accompanying essays particularly interesting but thought that the notes on each specific work more compelling. The choices of artwork included in the book is primarily restricted to portraits, but not only paintings but paper drawings and minatures also.

Portraits By Ingres: Image Of An Epoch showcases odalisques and dramatic historical scenes painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) and are justifiably considered to rank among the master-pieces of nineteenth-century French art. The superbly reproduced paintings are enhanced with informative contributions on Ingres' life and work by Philip Conisbee, Rebecca A. Rabinow, Christopher Riopelle, Robert Rosenblum, Andrew Carrington Shelton, Gary Tinterow, and Georges Vigne, as well as drawing entries by Hans Naef. With its photographs of the artist and his sitters (and caricatures from contemporary journals) Portraits By Ingres is a seminal, scholarly, beautifully presented, landmark publication that will secure Ingres in his proper place for students of art history.

I have been waiting for a first-rate work on Ingres portraits for many years and now it is finally here! This book is a MUST HAVE for anyone who admires Ingres. The book was published in conjunction with the wonderful exhibition of Ingres portraits which played in London, New York, and Washington DC. I attended the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and this book does justice to what I saw in person. Since not every work of art was seen at each venue, the book provides reproductions of several works which were not made available for viewing in the United States (such as the great Rothchild portrait). I have the books on Ingres by both Robert Rosenblum and Georges Vigne. Although both of those books were good, this new book surpasses them due to the quality of the writing and the superb reproductions. There are enlightening essays by both the exhibition curators together with outside experts such as Rosenblum and Vigne. The reproductions are plentiful and very good quality. In addition to the oil paintings, there are dozens of high quality reproductions of the superb portrait drawings. Each portrait is accompanied by an essay together with the provenance and exhibition history of the work. The book also deals with the thorny issue of collaborators. Although the book is fairly expensive, it is well worth the money. Perhaps one day we will have similar books published on other great portrait painters such as Holbein, Moroni, and Bronzino. Anyone in the museum or publishing world listening?

I was assigned to read this book for a history course I took at the University of California at Los Angeles. Like most students, I thought, great, one more book to read. But unlike all the other texts my professor assigned that term--this one blew my socks off! It was great! Well-written, with a pulsating plot, great historical "characters", neat descriptions of diseases of another time. I am recommending it to all my friends and now to all of you on Amazon. Read "Quarantine!"

Ellen F., Los Angeles

Quarantine is a wonderful book! Dr. Markel has written an excellent history of epidemics in New York City during the 1890s--which was a true-life Hot Zone for cholera and typhus. Richly illustrated and beautifully written!

I have read a lot of books on epidemics and american history and I must say this is the best I have read. Markel does a superb job of bringing the reader right into the hearts and minds of those involved in the epidemics in New York of 1892. He also manages to tell a hell of a good story. No boring historical monograph--this is a scholarly thriller--well documented and well told. I loved it!

Those of you who know Robert Taylor's art work will know what to expect from this book. Those of you don't, then you will be treated to some superb sketches and paintings which mainly focus on World War 2 aviation scences. Taylor has an excellent eye for detail and realism and researchs his subject(s) to ensure that his paintings are more than just realistic, they are factual. In this book he talks about how some of his paintings were done, along with comments from some of his subjects such as Adolf Galland, Townsend, Johnnie Johnson etc. The book includes 24 of his paintings, including some of my favourites "Dambusters","JG-52", "Victory over Dunkirk" all of which are on good quality paper. This is a quality book which displays the master's work and the master at work and highly recommended, although some may find the price a little prohibitive.

If you don't have the money to buy an original painting of Robert Taylor, but you want to see his works, this book is absolutly fantastic.
You can look to the prints for hours, using your fantasy how it was/is to be a combat pilot.
But, do not not expect it to be a book with a lot of prints.
This is just a selection of one of the most beautiful prints.
This is really a book you can look in from time to time and turn yourself into another fasinating world.

This is to clarify the actual status of Taylor's Vol. 1-4 volumes of terrific aviation art.

All volumes are still available through several aviation art dealers. ( NW Aviation Art/Leisure Galleries) I do not know why Amazon lists many of these as out of print. They are NOT!

The new Volume 4 is out as of Sept. 2000.

Wish Amazon stocked them all.

As often is the case with general volumes of poetry, or books available in many editions, a good reveiw necessarily consists of two parts: first a review of the original material, and then a review of the specific edition.

For the original material, Verlaine is an amazing poet. He represents possibly the first and greatest lyrical poet to be initiated into modernity. His lyricism is not baroque, whimsical, or decadent - it is haunted and beautifull. It is like the music of Chopin (as it could be said that Rimbaud's is closer to that of Liszt). He represents a unique tract among the many poetic styles gestating in a Paris newly thrust into what we call modernity. There was the cynical and disolute Baudelaire, the ribald and frenzied Rimbaud, and then the melancholy and lyrical Verlaine. These three writers could easily be seen as a trifecta of greatness: they together represent the principal moods that have dominated literature to follow in their tracks.

The editions of a poets works, however, should certainly be considered independent of the poems themselves. Translation and selection of poems from such a broad body of work is both highly prejudicial, and (perhaps as a result) also creates a unique beauty in each seperate edition.

This edition, though, is a stand out among others available. First, because it probably is the largest English collection of Verlaines work (170 poems or so) and second because it's assembly, tranlations, and annotation reveal a very profound thoughtfullness on the part of the translator and editor, Martin Sorrell.

Most selections of Verlaines work are contrite and myopic, pick only certain early poems which have been translated and anthologized ad nauseum with no greater depth than that of a poem-a-day desk calendar or the litterary equivalent of easy listening music. In contrast, Sorrell's presentation is symphonic. The poems he has selected are true to the life of the poet - complete with ragged edges and blissfull moments.

How could one appreciate Verlaine's true genius if he is only shown in an artificial, sacrine, sanatized way? Sorrell boldly includes a large amount of poems from Verlaine's later work, largely disparaged by other critics, and provides very thoughtfull annotations about the inspirations, impacts, and ultimate relevance of each poem.

In this way Sorrell has created a very thoughtfull meditation on the life and work of Verlaine, and shares it with his audience so even a layman can appreciate it.

There is also a parallel French Text, which I find indespensible. Although not all of the translations are done the same way I would, diversity is what makes literature beautifull, and I am very interested to see the relationship between Sorrell's scholarship of Verlaine's life and the way in which he translates Verlaine's verses. This is a valuable tool not found if you were to simply read a French edition of Verlaine's poems or preuse an anthology.

In the end, this book is a excellent illustration of why translations and collections can be usefull even to people who have already read Verlaine in French.

Verlaine is perhaps my favourite poet--many of his poems are exceptionally beautiful, salacious even. However he wrote prolifically, and as is often the case with prolific artists, his work is of uneven quality. Nevertheless, at his best, Paul Verlaine's poetry is among the most remarkable that I've ever read. I highly recommend this collection.

I first read this collection during Christmas break of my freshman year of college, and have never again had a more powerful experience with poetry. Verlaine is often viewed as the poor man's accomplice of Rimbaud; MacIntyre, the translator of this volume, is often dismissed as an awkward versifier. I regard both assessments as absurd.

Verlaine is not as close as Rimbaud to the free verse dogma of recent decades, but precisely for this reason he plays a vintage music in his poems, mixing whimsical subject matter with rock-solid traditional verse forms. (I don't agree that he did better work after his encounter with Rimbaud-- far from it, in fact.) Consider this lovely, even haunting refrain:

In the ennui unending
of the flat land,
the vague snow descending
shines like sand.

With no gleam of light
in the copper sky,
one imagines he might
see the moon live and die.

Wind-broken crow
and starving wolves too,
when sharp winds blow
what happens to you?

In the ennui unending
of the flat land,
the vague snow descending
shines like sand.

This sort of melodic drollery is mastered by nobody in the history of poetry like Verlaine, and MacIntyre is just the man to capture it. (He also does fine versions of the early Rilke.)

Don't miss this volume!