european

Absolutely excellent. Ciardi's description of the Canto, and the actual translated text followed by his notes helped me disect and understand Inferno better than anyone's translation to date.

There are suppositions, where Ciardi does his best to determine or even guess what Dante's intentions where with phrases and descriptions. This is not by any means a negative attribute of his efforts. Any speculation is clearly stated, and determined using history, Greek mythology, and Dante's political entanglements at the time of his writings.

This is a copy worth collecting. Too bad Random House has discontinued both Pergatorio and Paradisio in hard cover though...hard to find.

No doubt one of the best works of literature known to us. Although influenced by the events of his day, Dante would have made a great writer and thinker in our time. My dream is to write a follow-up to Dante's "Divine Comedy" using events since the time of Dante, and presenting more subjective views of religion and the afterlife. I plan to start this project in the near future and who knows how long before it's completion........could be years. I think this would be a novel idea and I have yet to see any other such modern day works.

Compared to most modern stories about the afterlife, Dante's "Divine Comedy" actually has some punch and originaity to it! The writing is also incredible and you could choke on the symbolism. If you can stand the heat, come on in the kitchen!

Kaspar is the kind of play of truly incredible depth that only comes along once in a great while. In my mind it is on the same level as the tragedies of Shakespeare and the Greeks. At first glance, this is a rather pretentious play about language and language aquisition, but it runs much deeper and has all sorts of implications for all sorts of people. If you are at all interested in language, society, psychology, psycho, socio, or antho-liguistics, human development, if you have ever worked with mentally [handicapped] or autistic children, or if you are interested in what it is to be human, check out this play. One caveat, though: One reviewer commented that the play consists of two columns of text designed to be _read_ simultaneously. This is not true, the play is not meant to be read at all, it is meant to be performed. Unless you put considerable energy into penetrating the text, you will get little out of reading it without seeing it performed.
The other plays in this volume are also interesting and worth checking out, although a bit self-referential to the theatre. I have heard that the translator has changed the new edition, including altering the title of "Offending the Audience" to "Public Insult" wich, to me, ruins it completely. Anyway, check out this book, but go see a performance if you can.

Found on the shelves of Book World in New Haven. Seen on the stage in Chicago. Still in my hands years later. Read in excerpts often and in entirety every few years - because I'm not sure why the play Kaspar has such a hold on me. And because it thrills me.

Perhaps because it points back to before my mind was stuffed with concepts. Perhaps because I sense my thoughts are in a rut. I don't know. What words to choose? What choice?

I know no similar work of literature. Wonderful to see performed. A challenge to read being 2 columns per page meant to be recited sometimes interleaved, sometimes simaltaneously. But even though it is not performed often, you can nevertheless benefit by reading it alone. I certainly did until I saw the play 4 years after reading it. Even better than reading it to yourself, find some friends and recite it together. You probably won't capture all of the staged play's power, but you may have more fun than a lone read. Still, the theatrics are only a part of Kaspar's challenge. Why do you think as you do? How much of one's thinking is explanatory fiction? Where did the store of phrases come from? Is it helping?

In some strange attachment, the play Kaspar figures deeply in my self-definition. Foolish, to let a powerful warning about language define me. I don't even think I understand it that well. But long after I have set aside many books, this one continues to challenge and amaze me.

...goes to Peter Handke's Kaspar. I first read the play because I had been cast in the show, and frankly I thought it was another psudo-intellectual work intended only to confuse the audience with bitter attempts at meaning through poetry which, at the time, I had seen and worked on all too much of. Kaspar was different. Seven years later, I'm still reflecting on the experience I had with that text, re-reading it, discovering new things, and marveling at the genius of Peter Handke in every regard. I have never known any contemporary playwright to be so didactic yet at the same time so evocative. Most writers with this kind of material just dish out a pile of footnotes in dialogue form. Handke does neither; rather, he paints many unseen facets of profound themes surrounding socialization, language development, and object recognition, to name a few. The way Handke deals with concepts of learning and how we take a typical learning process for granted is illuminating in ways that no theory book or psychology text can offer - and shouldn't that really be the point of theatre? To offer the audience something they can't get anywhere else?

This is a directors play, an actors play, even a designer's play - but most triumphantly it is Handke's play. I can think of few writers outside Shakespeare who can manage to leave so much to those producing the work while still leaving an indelible thumbprint on the final product. My only lament is that the english language is deprived of a writer of this magnitude.

This book provides an intriguing narrative embedded with statements about morality, sin, and the redemtiveness of love and guilt. In this book we track the life of a man who wills a murder to save his dying company, and then travells afar to repay the murdered man's family, learning lessions about life as he is transformed into a new man. A perfect novel!

this book is perfect because it combinates fantasy with the human race reality and in the end it shows how similar we can be to the protagonist and how our decisions can change and affect others people life

La figura del diablo tratado al estilo español marca de forma absoluta esta obra junto al tratamiento del sentimiento de culpa humano, la itencionalidad y el ansia de dinero y poder. Sin lugar a dudas magnífico

I've read most of the novels in Dr. Schlant's book. Yet when I turned the last page of LANGUAGE, I knew that one of my next projects will have to include re-reading them.

She rightly isolates the lone voices who dared speak up from 1945 - 1960 or so, especially Karl Jaspers. Perhaps if we ask, she will write a sequel on the individuals she does identify as positive role models in an era when they were few. [Note: I think I disagree with her assessment of Werner Bergengruen's works, as he was widely read by the small numbers involved in German resistance, and was a special friend of the White Rose. In fact, he manually duplicated some of their leaflets not knowing he knew the authors, an action that could have met with death. But I will not quibble.]

Even if she never gets around to a follow-up work, this one will have accomplished something few others have dared to speak aloud, namely boldly proclaiming that the world has not expected too much of Germany, that there have not been too many books about the Holocaust, that in fact those who chant "there's no business like Shoah business" are the worst informed of the lot.

For what she says is true -- Germany must figure out how to mourn the dead. Once the nation is willing to collectively grieve (and not sate its conscience by buying Magen David necklaces and swelling the numbers at klezmer concerts), then perhaps the writing of books about the Holocaust can end. But not before then.

Thank you, Dr. Schlant.

At a recent book party for Ernestine Schlant (a.k.a. Mrs. Bill Bradley), I was particularly struck with Ms. Schlant's statement that "literature is the seismograph of a people's unconscious".

Ms. Schlant and I both grew up in Germany. She was nine years old at the end of WWII, I was six. We both live in the US and have a foot in both worlds. I attended schools where "former" Nazi teachers made sure that I didn't know about the atrocities committed by my people, was surrounded by a thick wall of impenetrable silence and like many young Germans of my generation, including Schlant, didn't find out about the Holocaust until I ventured abroad as a young adult and was confronted with its horror.

It can safely be said that the official silence of the first twenty postwar years has long since given way to debates, discussions, the publication of many non-fiction books, documentaries, and so forth. While German authors like Heinrich Böll (who received the Nobel prize in 1972), Günter Grass (one of last year's nobelists), Wolfgang Borchert, Siegfried Lenz, and others have written eloquently about the horrors and the madness of war and our misery because of it, literature by non-Jewish Germans depicting and addressing the suffering of fellow German-Jewish citizens continues to be virtually nonexistent. We saw our world as shattered by WWII and its aftermath, Jews disappeared - while the language with which we describe our own suffering is rich in nuance and texture, the language we use to describe the fate of Jews is abstract and devoid of emotional resonance.

In my own research, I have found that many of my countrymen believe that there is in fact an abundance of literature written by German gentiles which deals with the plight of European Jews in general and German Jews in particular. In reality, there is a distinct absence of Holocaust victims as protagonists in literature written by German gentiles. Many if not most Germans seem to consider literature about their own suffering during WWII and the chaos of the postwar years, and condemnation of the Hitler regime as synonymous with writing about Holocaust victims. It doesn't strike them as extraordinary that there are almost no books written by them about our former Jewish fellow citizens, who had lived in Germany for hundreds of years, had contributed to our culture and society, had been our neighbors, our class-mates, our colleagues, our acquaintances, our friends and our relatives. As Ms. Schlant brilliantly demonstrates in her book, even after WWII , when it was perfectly safe to do so, almost no books were written by Germans, which explored their feelings about the forced emigration or deportation to a sure death of their Jewish fellow citizens. Not even by the roughly half a million German gentiles who had acquired Jewish relatives through marriage. One could expect that at least a handful of those might have felt compelled to write about the emotional fallout of the tragedies of their Jewish in-laws, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, or cousins.

In my first collection of narrative poetry TALES FROM A CHILD OF THE ENEMY (so far only published in the US) the stories of holocaust victims and survivors whom I met in Brooklyn during the sixties, figure prominently. I have returned to Germany regularly to share my work with students and others. Several Germans involved in creating Holocaust teaching curricula, have criticized my inclusion of Holocaust victims in my writing and have suggested that 'I should write about my experience, and Holocaust survivors should write about theirs'.

To this day, German Jews are referred to as Jews, hardly ever as German citizens, thereby continuing their marginalization in German consciousness. Not surprisingly, young Germans are generally unaware that German Jews had been fully integrated and assimilated into German society prior to the Holocaust.

Yes, German gentiles visit Israel; some young Germans pick weeds on kibbutzim during their holidays; others join Action Reconciliation and perform lowly tasks in Jewish nursing homes. But to this day we Germans have failed by and large to incorporate the fates, the sorrow and the suffering of our fellow German-Jewish citizens into our literature.

What then does the seismograph of the unconscious as reflected in German literature, say about The New Germany?

A great analytic work in which Schlant adds meaning to that which is omitted or left unsaid in post-war German literature about Nazi crimes against the Jews and thereby lifts analytic writing to a new and higher level. In analyzing the post-war german literature, Schlant explains, clarifies and puts into context complex metaphors for those of us who would otherwise be led onto wrong paths and conclusions. Due to its intensity and perception, this book is hard to put down.

For those who have tried their hand at Deleuze's other works--notably _A Thousand Pleateus_ and _Anti-Oedipus_--the title of my review will completely make sense. In this essay, Deleuze presents an egaging arguement about the development of the Oedipal complex and its relation to masochism. Basically, in the final stage of Freud's Oedipus the son is meant to internalize an identification with the father. In revolt he engages in the masochistic drama--a desperate attempt to re-enter the early stage of identification with the mother. By engaging in Masoch's drama, the woman becomes the subject's mother, and she proceeds to ritualistically beat the father out of the son. After all, dad is the one guilty of forcing the two apart in the first place. But this woman, this actress playing the mother, is certainly not a "sadist"; she herself is a masochist, because masochism has by this point proven to be an entire setting--an entire life--all of the characters, tools, words, rituals and scripted parts involved therein.

Contract, ritual, drama and fear combine to show us complexities of human expressions of violence, care, sexuality and the inter-relation between these three. I do not understand why this book has not recieved as much attention as some of Deleuze's others; its brilliance and accessibility--packaged of course with the eloquent and important _Venus in Furs_--make it well worth your time and money.

this is HOT stuff!!!do yourself a favor and get yer mitts on this one!!!

This refers to the book, Venus in Furs, not the essay by Deleuze. I loved this book. Not because I'm some psycho who enjoys pain, but because it tastefully deals with an issue that is too often either misrepresented as some libertine taboo or dealt with in a clinical way. Instead you have a story that deals with love in a different way than a typical Danielle Steele romance novel or a "boy meets girl," sappy drugstore paperback. And while it deals with passionate cruelty it, unlike books by Sade, captures unbridled desire and an inflamed heart. It is truly a great work of literature, easily comparable to "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe.

If you like sappy romance stories, buy something else. If you want an intriguing love story full of the passion of life and the strumming of the stings of emotion, read away.

I have never known better literature. I myself am not a good writer so I'll just say is this: Canetti heightend my sensitivity towards life - fundamentally. His autobiography showed me how complex and interesting life can be, if you see it through a mind like Canetti's who is able to describe his perception in a more profound yet boad way than anybody and who chose a corresponding path of life. I'm glad I read him while still in college, because otherwise I had not known how narrowminded I really was before I met Canetti.
My favorite book.

(PS. English is not my first language so please excuse whatever you don't like about my writing.)

I first read Auto-da-Fe on the recommendation of my German teacher at school. Even then, I was astounded by Canetti's humour and intelligence. I was delighted to come across a rather shabby hardbound copy of The Torch in my Ear on sale for £1.00 outside Surrey County Council Library recently.

I settled down to reacquaint myself with Canetti and, like a reunion with an old friend, I was overjoyed to rediscover his warmth, his wit, and his searing intellect. For such a clever man, though, Canetti is still aware he has a reading public eager to hear tales of the famous names, with whom he rubbed shoulders during his very brief time in Berlin. To learn that the great George Grosz was indeed a misogynist and Brecht a slave to fashion gave me that wry smile that I remembered from reading Canetti before.

For anyone wanting to gain a really deep insight into Central Europe in the 1920's and 30's, this is the book to read and not the titillating, ever-so-British accounts of Christopher Isherwood.

what a book, what a writer! having read plenty of literary autobiographies, i am still stunned at the depth and insight of these three volumes. the first, tongue set free, is the most lyrical; the other two focus more on young canetti's developement as a writer and thinker. such is canetti's art that only after reading the books several times the reader notices all the things he is not told... although this autobiography is a great source of enjoyment to everyone who is interested in literature, it should be read with a bit of caution: never to forget that this is, despite everything, literary fiction. i am not implying that canetti is lying (he is not), but he has more purpose than just presenting his times and lifes, and some scenes (like the describtion of café museum) seem to be just describtions while they are full or literary quotes etc. i think it is this that sets canetti's work apart from other writers of the era.

If you are looking for a picture book of Parisian interiors to inspire your decorating, this will work very well. I am constantly searching for books like this--which are full of illustations of those interior details which seem to be uniquely Parisian. Every page is illustrated with photographs and includes just enough commentary to keep it interesting without getting descriptively heavy. This is definitely a pictoral reference/beautiful parlour table book.

I don't actually own this book; I found it by chance in my college's art library. Instantly, I fell in love with it's straight-forward photography. I have been renewing it for two months, and it has given me boundless inspiration for decorating my new apartment. This book is a jewelbox of decor and interior style. The full-page spreads offer tantilizing shots of the personal apartments of Parisian society-- both of the known and unknown; of large dimensions and of miniscule-- expousing beautiful decor that only a Parisian could pull off. Junk shop havens, classical boudoirs, catch-all collecting dens, and the odd moderne loft-- each interior is a true joy to see. Read, view, and enjoy and be inspired.

As a creative director, I've found this book to be very inspiring. Great photographic studies of Paris' most stylish homes (some owned by the famous, some are not) drip from these pages. Huge full-page and sometimes double-page images, printed on nice thick semi-matte stock, draw you right in. Like her book on Provence, its a great escape into another world. If you are a student of the esthetic, you will love it! PS. The cover is coffee-table ready too.

Would you ever want to face a giant ogre? That's what happens to Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk retold by Val Biro. Jack trades a cow for magic beans that end up growing into a beanstalk. I like this book because it is exciting. I like all the characters in the book, especially the giant. Jack plants the missing beans, see what grows!

This is a witty and imaginative retelling of the classic story. We have owned this book for almost a year now, and among scores of other books, it continues to be the favorite among both my 1-1/2 year old and my 3 year old boys. It is exciting without being too frightening, and can be used as the basis for a lot of imaginative play.

Newsweek recently did an article on top picks of children's book. This one was one of them. We purchased it and I concur. My just turned 4 year old daugther loves the tale and sits close waiting for me to turn the page. The illustrations our lively and fun and keep the kids interested. This is a must for your child's book collection.

Carlos Fuentes tiene un conflicto de identidad muy grande. El trata de ser mexicano hasta el tuetano pero su formacion fue en diversos paises debido a que su padre era embajador. El siente que debe de demostrar que es mexicano escibiendo sobre mexicanos y sus propios conflictos de identidad. En este libro en particular el resultado es muy bueno, sin duda Fuentes puede tener una narativa muy agil y logra describir muy bien el conflicto de identidad visto desde la comoda posicion de la clase media alta.

Un libro muy ingenioso. Los nueve cuentos tratan diferentes aspectos de la relacion de los inmigrantes mexicanos con "el pais de las oportunidades". Recomiendo este libro por realista, entretenido y sobre todo, porque esta excelentemente bien escrito.

Al haber leído este libro hace un año y seguir pensando en cada uno de esos cuentos es para mí algo extraordinario. Este libro fue mi introducción a la literatura de Carlos Fuentes, quien es uno de los escritores mexicanos que se merece el elogio que ha recibido durante todos estos años. El hecho de que es un intelectual y escritor en cierta forma exige que nos entregue un producto que no nos falle. Esto ha sido logrado en "La Frontera de Cristal." El "conflicto" que todos los mexicanos padecemos debido a nuestra situación migratoria entre México y Estados Unidos ha sido capturado dentro de las páginas de este libro. Cada relato exige del lector entender cada personaje, su personalidad y su deseo de superación, a pesar del conflicto que se mantiene dentro de nuestra sociedad (por ejemplo, el anciano en la silla de ruedas..."Soy yo.").

No cabe duda que Carlos Fuentes entiende todo esto y más. Y es que un escritor que puede mantener una cierta intimidad con su lector entiende el sufrimiento, la superación personal y la lucha interna del ser humano.

Genuine romance and passion is missing from most books, either fiction or nonfiction, and I don't think I've ever come across both in such quantity as there is in "La Vita Nuova" ("The New Life"), the unsung masterpiece of poet Dante Alighieri, author of the classic Divina Comedia.

"La Vita Nuova" is a series of poems and anecdotes centering around the life-changing love of Dante for a young woman named Beatrice. The two first met when they were young children, of about eight. Dante instantly fell in love with her, but didn't really interact with her for several years. Over the years, Dante's almost supernatural love only increased in intensity, and he poured out his feelings (grief, adoration, fear) into several poems and sonnets. During an illness, he has a vision about mortality, himself, and his beloved Beatrice ("One day, inevitably, even your most gracious Beatrice must die"). Beatrice died at the age of twenty-four, and Dante committed himself to the memory of his muse.

It would be a hard task to find another book overflowing with such incredible love and passion as "La Vita Nuova"; it's probably the most romantic book I have ever seen. It's brief and only includes one part of Dante's life overall, but it's a truly unique love story. Dante and Beatrice were never romantically involved. In fact, both of them married other people.

But Dante's love for Beatrice shows itself to be more than infatuation or crush, because it never wanes -- in fact, it grows even stronger, including Love manifested as a nobleman in one of Dante's dreams. There is no element of physicality to the passion in "La Vita Nuova"; Dante talks about how beautiful Beatrice is, but that's only a sidenote. (We don't hear of any real details about her) And Dante's grief-stricken state when Beatrice dies (of what, we're never told) leads him to deep changes in his soul, and eventually peace. And though Beatrice died, because of Dante's love for her and her placement in the "Comedia," she has achieved a kind of immortality.

One of the noticeable things about this book is that whenever something significant happens to Dante (good, bad, or neither), he immediately writes a poem about it. Some readers may be tempted to skip over the carefully constructed poems, but they shouldn't. Even if these intrude on the story, they show what Dante was feeling more clearly than his prose.

It's impossible to read this book and come out of it jaded about love or true passion. Not the sort of stuff in pulp romance novels, but love and passion that come straight from the heart and soul, in a unique and unusual love story. Every true romantic should read this book.

this is the book of the artist as a young man, struggling against the regime and the establishment. Herein lies doleful sorrow, unhealable heartbreak and the truth of a young man's soul. Anyone who has loved and lost will see themselves anew on these pages. This is truly the greatest of Dante's work. The Commedia was written for money and for general consumption. Join the inner circle of those who would like to understand the heart of this great personage, and cherish his thoughts from when they were most fresh and new.

The sonnets in this work are wonderful. They are perfect insights to a human's secret love. I was impressed that this medieval writer could express the longings of his loving heart so clearly, like he could read the words of his own heart as if it were like a glass ball. These words can really crush, yet move the soul. This is an excellent book for Dante fans and for anyone who's interested in medieval romantic verse.