european

I had to read this book for French class and found it to be the best French book I'd ever read. The play is wonderful with its use of flashbacks and the ending is just wonderful even though its not how it was in history. It makes the whole story seem hopeful, as it should be and not sad, which is how most people perceive the story of Jeanne d'Arc. I highly recommend this book!

This was a very excellent book! It is about Joan of Arc, told in dialogue as a character reenactment. The book is filled with passages of great insight spouted by this young girl while she is on trial for heresy. She says much concerning religion and God and also of fear and loyalty. There is some humor as well. The end, although not completely historically accurate, is made so on purpose, demonstrating the author's existentialist beliefs. He believes it is better to die for one's cause than live without a cause.

The translation here strays a bit from the original for the sake of making it rhyme. Although this may raise the eyebrows of some purists, I feel that the english version has charms of its own. The design of this book is really outstanding, and the old duo-tone photographs used to illustrate it are quite poetic in their own right, and seem even more so as a result of the way they are combined with the text. The book as a whole evokes images of a lost paradise, which I have never seen expressed so well outside of the writings of Proust. I even like the way it smells! This would make an excellent gift for any lover of poetry or photography.

This book is not only gorgeous to browse through yet exceptionally poetic and useful at the same time. It is a bilingual book- french and english with absolutely fabulous illustrations to aid the imagination. Sucha lovely work and an intriguing way to involve both adults and children into Baudelaire's complex poetry. Well done!

This translation is perhaps as good as they get -- it reads well, rythm and cadence are flawless. And yet, a comparison of two versions side by side serves as a useful reminder that even the best translation is merely an approximation of the original. It is also evident that sometimes very substantial compromises in content are needed to preserve the structural integrity of the poetic form.

The English text, as beautiful and touching as it is in its own right, unfortunately does not reflect the very noticeably rougher texture of the Polish original. Polish text, still mostly comprehensible to the educated Polish reader, sounds distinctly archaic, and "resists" contemporary reader's temptation to read fast, as if it deliberately tried to slow him/her down.

Alas, gone as well are many poetic devices of the original, such as clever metaphors and word plays. E.g., in the fragment of Lament 2, reproduced on the amazon website, lost is the original's play on the word "piórko" (feather) which can be both a child's toy, and a poet's quill in "Jeslim kiedy nad dziecmi piorko mial zabawic"; similarly, the contrast of the SOUND of the poet's lament and the empty SILENCE of death ("plakac nad gluchym grobem", literally "to WEEP on a SILENT grave") is awkwardly lost in an admittedly smooth sounding, and more emotional "to weep on a small daughter's grave".

The fairly unfortunate "maritime" metaphor ("Looms like cliff above some wild and rough / Shore") is perhaps more in line with the Irish or English poetic tradition, but is totally out of place in Kochanowski's poem, and it unwisely replaces a wonderfully archaic, yet entirely comprehensible, and often quoted "moja nienagrodna szkoda" (literally, and in awkwardly too many words, "my loss, which no prize shall repay").

Still, given the original's complexity, the task both translators decided to tackle must have been daunting indeed, and the result is stunningly beautiful. Despite some lost or awkward metaphors, the essential core of the work, which is its profound emotional charge, comes across as strong as in the original, and so the 5-star rating is entirely deserved.

Additionally, both poets-translators probably deserve a 6th, honorary star, for taking on an important task, several centuries overdue.

I discovered this collection in a Slavic Literature class where it was required. I was deeply touched by these words of a father in mourning for his daughter; feelings expressed in the 16th Century that translate as if they were written today. Last week I was discussing Polish literature with a Holocaust survivor. When I mentioned Kochanowski's "Treny" (Laments), she got tears in her eyes and gasped- how did I know Kochanowski? She quoted a phrase in Polish, then said she always thinks about "Treny" when she thinks of her mother- it was her favorite- who was killed in Auschwitz. Today, when I gave her my bilingual copy, she held it to her heart. I could hear her heart crying when she said "thank you." Words of a daughter in mourning - and a human connection spanning four centuries.

Compiled out of quotations, newspaper articles, different folk songs and own experiences with Austria-Hungary and Germany through World War One Karl Kraus wrote this book to show the people of the time after the War their own absurd behavement. The book is written as a Drama, but without a continuous story it shows the war with examples of Journalists, Politics, Aristocrats, Workers, Soldiers. It is an important forefather of Brecht's epic drama. To understand the different quotations you should know a bit about the Austrian and German history and the Emperors of the time.

Karl Kraus is still well known in Germany, and deserves to be better known here. THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND, 'a play to be performed on Mars' is one of the most trenchant satires written this century. Kraus compiled the play from newspaper articles, official bulletins, and overheard conversations during World War One in Vienna. He actually performed excerpts from this damning indictment of the human race during the war. I wish that someone would translate all of this book from the German; one flaw of this edition is the note early on which states that 'since modern Americans are not familiar with minutiae of the life of the Emperor Franz Joseph, these chapters have been cut.' With all due respect, if we did not know something about the later Habsburgs we would not be reading THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND in the first place. The lowest pit in Kraus' hell is reserved for those vultures who treated wartime reporting as popular entertainment--which makes him an uncomfortably modern writer. Please, please beg borrow or steal a copy of this book and try to get it reprinted in a full translation!

For me, Nadja is only the second greatest book of the 20th century. Soupault's novel comes across the finish line a full length ahead, but for no discernible reason.

I've always admired this book, and it seems I go back to it almost every day, and try to peek into it. I first read it twenty years ago, and still don't feel that I know what it is about, and I don't think anybody else does either. The French criticism doesn't go into the obvious Spenglerian feeling of the title, nor does it go into detail concerning the strange murders and deaths that take place within a double love-story. As the Seine winds through Paris, so the narrator winds, with a strange and curious indifference as well as passion. This book details odd meetings with thieves, prostitutes, and the clock at the top of what is now the Musee d'Orsay (but was then a major train station). But why? The book is so strange, and yet so familiar, like walking in Paris at night, and yet more vividly observed than one would believe possible. Nothing happens in the book, and yet everything happens. This book is a freak that no one will ever understand. It just has to be experienced, like a dream that seems to have a mysterious cogency that one can never formulate into anything that can be logically understood.

-- Kirby Olson

Ce livre magistral de Soupault contient en effet tout son siècle. Publié la même annnée que Nadja de Breton (1928), il offre au surréalisme l'un de ses plus beaux textes chargé d'onirisme. La poésie urbaine s'accompagne d'une vision apocalyptique propre à Soupault et n'est pas surchargé de passages théoriques que l'on retrouve dans Nadja ou dans les textes de Breton en général. Traduit par William Carlos Williams, il garde toute sa force, toute sa vitalité notemment dans son rapport au monde et aux gens. Les personnages de la prostituée ou du bookmaker ne sont décrits ni avec complaisance ni avec sarcasmes : Soupault se contente de les faire vivre. Comme le narrateur, ces personnages puisent leur énergie dans les rues de Paris. Avec eux le lecteur renverse le vieux monde dans les formidables incendies qui ravagent les quartiers de Paris. C'est cette même énergie que l'on retrouvera l'année suivante dans le roman Le Nègre où Edgard Manning assassine dans une violence sexuelle une autre prostituée nommée Europe... Mais à ne lire les livres de soupault que dans la seule optique surréaliste, c'est passer à côté de la modernité de celui-ci. Dès le Bon Apôtre, et cela se confirme dans les romans ultérieurs, la narration joue tout son rôle et prend tout son sens. On a pu dire que ces romans préfigurent déjà les techniques qui deviendront à la mode avec le nouveau roman... Qui autre que W-C Williams aurait été plus à même de traduire ce texte essentiel mais passé depuis en france sous un silence que l'on aimerait croire admiratif ?

emmanuel

THE GIFT THE AUTHOR HAS TELLING ME OF HORATIUS IS BEAUTIFUL. THE WORDS THAT HE USES BECOME A SCENIC PICTURE THT ENTRANCES MY MIND AND CAPTURES MY SENSES. I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THE LAND THAT HE SPEAKS OF AND FEEL AS IF I HAVE BEEN THERE IN MY MIND. HE IS ELOQUANT AND POETIC AND EVEN THE HORRIBLE BATTLES ARE BEAUTIFUL!

Then out spake brave Horatius,/ The Captain of the Gate:/ ``To every man upon this earth/ Death cometh soon or late./ And how can man die better/ Than facing fearful odds,/ For the ashes of his fathers,/ And the temples of his gods/ ... Then none was for a party;/ Then all were for the state;/ Then the great man helped the poor,/ And the poor man loved the great:/ Then lands were fairly portioned;/ Then spoils were fairly sold:/ The Romans were like brothers/ In the brave days of old./ Now Roman is to Roman/ More hateful than a foe,/ And the Tribunes beard the high,/ And the Fathers grind the low./ As we wax hot in faction,/ In battle we wax cold:/ Wherefore men fight not as they fought/ In the brave days of old./

I studied this text when I was 18. Moliere is witty and humorous, which actually made reading this text a pleasure. He has lovely usage of his language.

I read this in my French class... the play is hilarious, well worth reading, and if you can't read French, you should read a translation or go see the play! It's funny, and although it is like many of Molière's other plays, it's a nice deviation from the normal play.

Nabokov claims to dislike Don Quixote and considers the novel 'crewl' yet spent a significant portion of time analyzing the novel and teaching it. I am reminded of Tolstoy's dismissal of Shakespeare and his dissection of King Lear. Orwell correctly pointed out that, among these giants, bothering to grapple with another's legend so completely is a nod to greatness, one doesn't bother to kill a knat w/ a sledgehammer.

What Nabokov does to that venerable Don Q. is to rip it apart, disembowel it, resect the viscera, muscle and bones, and demonstrate how it has all been fitted together, how its various part work and (more importantly) how and why some parts don't work at all.

I admit to having had a life-long aversion to Don Q., an aversion that is rooted in early efforts to make me read "children's versions" of the book by guise of educating me. I suspect that such dislike is widely shared by those who have dared attempt the original text, or even its modern translations. Those who love the story are likely to have limited their sampling to the musical version of the book: "Man of La Mancha."

And so it was truly a pleasure to follow Nabokov in his extraordinary feat of dissection. Nobody in nearly 400 years of Spanish critical appraisals of this awful book has ever come close to exposing the work as thoroughly and meticulously as Nabokov does in the six lectures that he gave at Harvard in 1952. Spanish critics of Cervantes are mainly hagiographers, incapable of noting the Emperor's nakedness. They are apt to compare Cervantes to Shakespeare (don't they wish!), a comparion which Nabokov insightfully reduces to this:

"The only matter in which Cervantes and Shakespeare are equals is the matter of influence, of spiritual irrigation -- I have in view the long shadow cast upon receptive posterity of a created image which may continue to live independently from the book itself. Shakespeare's plays, however, will continue to live apart from the shadow they project." By implication, Don Q. would not.

Nabokov even exposes the canard, much repeated in Spain, that Cervantes and Shakespeare died on the same day in 1616. They did not. It is true that each died on April 23 of that year, but they lived in different calendars, with a ten day gap between their true dates of defunction.

Before embarking on his lectures, Nabokov abstracted each of the 126 chapters of the two volumes, citing their essential elements. These abstracts are included in the book. In addition, he surveyed the work noting Don Q's "victories" and "defeats," a monumental task which lays bare each of his encounters and battles (40 all told), each scored as a "victory" or a "defeat." He comments, in amazement, about one critic who had said "Never, by any chance, does Don Quixote win."

Not so. When all the battles are added up the score is precisely 20/20. Don Q. won as many as he lost.

When Nabokov called this "one of the most bitter and barbarous books even penned" it did not gain him friends among the professional academics of the ivory towers; but the observation is true and constitutes one of the many explanatory notes about the book that allows the readers to understand their dislike (if they have a dislike) for this work.

Only six lectures. One of the great anatomical feats by that wizard Nabokov. It is not necessary to know the Qixote in order to enjoy this tour de force; in addition, anyone who writes fiction will love (and benefit from) the type of deep structural analysis to which Nobokov subjects this novel. Nabokov's handywork is a beautiful excercise in education "as it should be," and therefore it is worth the time and effort to read it.

My husband is Italian, so Befana (who brings gifts to Italian children on Epiphany) is as much a part of our Christmas traditions as Santa Claus. To be honest, I prefer the story of Befana and find it a lot closer to the spirit of Christmas.

Befana is a somewhat grumpy and fussy old woman. One day Three Kings show up at her door, following a star, and looking for a miraculous baby. They urge Befana to come with them, but Befana is so busy with her household tasks she thinks she doesn't have time.

Little by little though, the idea of a baby who "comes for the poor" (like her) and yet attracts kings as well begins to move her and she decides to follow. She gathers up some goodies she has just baked and a few toys to bring as gifts for the new baby. But she has waited too long, and although she keeps following the star, she never finds the infant.

The lovely aspect of this story is that she begins leaving her gifts for other children, because she recognizes in them the spirit of that miraculous child that the Three Kings sought. I love the idea that children receive presents at Christmas because Jesus' spirit is in them.

This is an essential book for Italian-American families. I think it would also be a good book for teachers or parents of somewhat older children (past Santa Claus believing age) who are interested in Christmas traditions of different cultures. In Russia, the story of Babushka is very similar to the story of Befana (and there are several good picture books about her). And in Mexico, the Three Kings themselves bring presents (and Tomie dePaola has done a wonderful book about the story of the Three Kings that makes a perfect companion to this one).

Overall, a terrific Christmas book.

Tomie DePaola evoked memories of my childhood Christmas' in both visual and verbal splendor. I was taken back to my childhood and the story told to my sisters and myself about the Befana. Not only is this book written at a level that all children can understand and appreciate but it also keeps an adults interest. It beautifully illustrates another legend which inspires the wonderful message of the giving time we call Christmas. This has been accomplished noteably by Mr. DePaola's illustrations that although simple are rich in colour and meaning. As a person of Italian heritage I was elated to see such a wonderful legend captured in print in such a obviously well researched manner. The subtle yet awe inspiring symbolism contained in the book make it a pleasure for adults yet the simpleness and vibrant colours make it equally riveting for children. I would label this book a "must have" for all parents but especially those of Italian descent wanting to share some Italian culture with their children.

I am not related to Leon Battista Alberti...but I thought I would do a review of this book for the simple reason, I have read it.

An indepth look at both a Renaissance man and his times. The balance of information and readability for the less than committed scholar, gives this biography a wide range of appeal. If you like Italian history, especially of the Renaissance with a bit psychological and social analysis, you'll find it here.

The chapters are divided up into different interests, but you can skip around easily. Overall a very readable approach to a biography that covers quite a bit of academic insight.

My surname is Alberti (52 years old), I am a direct decendant of Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72). It was a very personal experience to read Mr. Graftons book. How often in this fast paced world do we forget our roots and our heritage. Since my father is still living there are 4 generations of Alberti's all residing in the United States. I appreciated Mr. Graftons style of brining to life the man behind the ledgend. Thank you Mr. Grafton, you have added much to the completion of the history of my family and ancestory.