Reviews (3)

Ein Werk für das Unendliche
Rilkes Duineser Elegien stehen an der Spitze, was die poetische Schöpfung des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts betrifft. Sie sind ein metaphysisches Nachdenken über den Menschen und die Realität. Rilke überlegt sich die menschliche Bestimmung. Dafür, dass das Leben eine vorübergehende und peinliche Erfahrung ist, zeigt er uns die Engel als ein überbewusstes Wesen. Im Gegensatz zu dem Menschen wohnen sie an einem offenen Raum. Es gelingt Ihnen das Leben und den Tod zu vereinigen.Dort findet das reine Geschehen statt. Wegen ihres selbstlosen Erlebnis sind die Helden, die Liebenden, die Kinder und die früh Verstorbenen nah daran, nach den Ordnungen der Engel zu gelangen.
Die verkündete Nacht ist zu der Schein-Unsichtbar Verwandlung geneigt, weil sie eine tiefere Wahrnehmung ermöglicht. Rilkes poetische Sprache, Rhythmus und Bildnis sind atemlos.

Good poet - bad translator
Yes, Rilke is a genius, whose poetry is abstract and disturbing yet also direct, concise and perfectly written.

Unfortunately, Snow's translation does not manage to capture Rilke's power in full flow, as other translatorshave managed to do so. The Picador edition is especially superior (althoughstill flawed). By all means buy the Elegies, which are among the bestpieces of literature of this century, and possibly the best collection oflyric poetry of all time - but if you buy this edition, you might notrealise that.

Acclaimed translator gives us the "Duino Elegies"
Edward Snow is one of the most respected translators of Rilke.He's been working his way through Rilke's poetry and now offers a superb version of the "Duino Elegies," long considered the high point of Rilke'scareer.

Reviews (39)

This book is a whopper
I have to give this book five stars, because it is such an awesome work, and not just in the teenage sense in which everything is awesome. This book really is awesome--like the starry sky, or the Grand Canyon, or Angel Falls. I must say, however, that I don't like it as much as I like Gaddis's JR, since JR is much funnier, and humor is what I like best.There are touches of humor here and there, and even one side-splitting scene (Otto's conversation with the man he takes to be his father), but on the whole this is a serious book--and a creepy one too, full of suicides, crucifixions, cruelty to animals, dark magic, and the like.

The Recognitions is often said to be mostly about art, but it seems to me to be just as much about religion.If there's a divinity student or an English grad student out there looking for a master's thesis or dissertation topic, here's one for you:the critique ofreligion in the novels of William Gaddis.

The Recognitions
Not many people even attempt to write like Gaddis anymore. His work, while some would argue, seems to lack much in the way of editing, aspires to something grander than the perfectly edited mediocrity of today's novels. "The Recognitions" is Joycean in its thematic and narrative breadth, and it's aesthetic/philosophic questions go beyond the often trite and angsty work of the later beatnik writers. In spite of highminded digressions on authenticity and Flemish art, the book remains totally engaging through a series of hilarious social parodies and sometimes tragic human dramas.

Reviews (2)

Invaluable
Vintage, the publisher, should feel deep, dark, spooky shame for letting this remarkable book go out of print. The reviewer below is misguided in his or her belief that there are more than a few clunkers among the translations: hogwash. Wilbur's rendition of "Le Pont Mirabeau" is an exceptionally musical version of an exceptionally musical poem, and approximates beautifully the Whistleresque mood. To critique Pound's translation is like saying "Damn the Moon, it's full of holes." Sure, but its the Moon. On the whole, this book gets it right, offering an interesting selection of poets and translators (just as there is more than one kind of poet, so too are there different, and equally valid, forms of translation). Seek it out till Bertlesman come to their multinational senses.

Reviews (29)

poetic and inspiring
Despite the sad overtones of the book, I enjoyed this interesting narrative regarding life, death, and love. It took me a mere two days to read, yet it was still worth every second.

I am now off to explore more works by Natsume Soseki.

evergreen, poetic and life in post Meiji Japan
I became a fan of Soseki after I read "Botchan" and "I am a cat" - both were fascinating books. Then I found "kokoro" in a book shop in SF. I am glad i bought it. This is a different genre of book - more of introspection and constructive criticism of the post Meiji Japan. I took a long time to read the book, like I do to read Kawabata - the culture is vastly different and most of the ideas are not explicit - you have to think imagine. Actually another great Japanese author, Junichiro Tanizaki, said that the modern day writer is too kind to the reader - so you have to think and interpret while you read.
The book is written in first person (it is quite autobiographical). It explores the feelings of a young college graduate - it examines his feelings. The narrator is obsessed with his friend, philosopher and guide whom he refers as "sensei" even though this person in return do not have the same feelings for the narrator in the beginning. Still he directs the narrator through some of the torturous path of life. The narrators father is in his death bed when he receives the last mail from his "sensei" - the contents of this letter covers later half of the book. In the letter his teacher narrates his own life.
Two things to notice - the absence of religious overtones or under currents and the respect for death. As I have read Mishima, Akutagawa I have found that in Japanese culture death has a more profound meaning than just the end of life. More than often this end of life is preceded by the objective of going on to live and in its absence death seems to be the obvious choice even though ominous.
Here also we find quite a few death but everybody, which includes the person who is dying and his or her close ones look for the objective of living. The status of women may provide a little sting to western readers but please realize that this is near end of Meiji era is Japan and not Las Vegas in 2004.
Please do not try to read this book in your flight from Boston to LA or you will be bored to death better read it in the Christmas holidays

Reviews (9)

The Best World History Atlas Book Anywhere
The Oxford Atlas is the best of all competitors. It is full-size, high quality ink and paper, 368 pages and covers most areas of history from the caveman to the present time. I am not speaking of the concise edition but of the full-size edition. The ISBN number is #0195215672.

This book covers about 2,000,000 years of history from the origins of humanity to the year 2000. The Atlas is the result of over three years' work by internationally renowned cartographers, an expert editorial team and specialist academic consultants.

I Rate and Compare World History Atlas Books
As a reader I like to have quick reference books at my finger tips including a new version of the Oxford English Dictionary about 3500 pages long - that I use almost daily. So I decided to add a "history atlas". In the process of doing my research I read the other amazon.com reviewers and then made three trips to two large book stores to actually look at the books and get a better feel for which was the best. I ended up buying the Oxford Atlas of World History. Here are my picks and rankings.

Listed by My ranking, #1 is the best, #2 is a creative alternative but no substitute.

1.Atlas of World History, Oxford University Press 2002, 368 pages, $57.80, 13.5" x 10.3" x 1.62" ranked 46,632 on Amazon.com. Hands down winner - professional - good text descriptions, outstanding maps and drawings, covers most things from the cave man forward. Negatives: Big and heavy. If you want to save a few dollars buy the "concise" version.

2.Creative alternative: The Penguin Atlas of World History, Penguin Books 2004, $11.20, just a paperback sized, just published, 304 pages. Surprisingly impressive, lots of text and pictures mixed together and it is easy to carry around. A nice quick alternative but it will be printed in two volumes.
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3.Timelines of World History, DK Publishing 2002, 666 pages, $27.20. 10.0" x 1.6" ranked 25,800 on Amazon.com. Second with lots of value but in some ways not as comprehensive.

4. National Geographic Almanac of World History, National Geographic 2003, 384 pages, $28.00, 9.6" x 7.8" x 1.17" ranked 24,426 on Amazon.com. Similar to but less impressive than Oxford books. More text, narrower coverage, fewer maps and drawings.

5.DK Atlas of World History, DK Publishing, 352 pages, $35.00, 10.96" x 14.66" x 1.28" ranked 10,716 on Amazon.com. My last place book seems like a giant comic book. I love the DK travel books but this seems like one step beyond DK's area of expertise. Superficially it is similar to the Oxford book and it is cheap, and some might like it but it tries to be politically correct and fails.

6.Oxford Dictionary of World History, Oxford University Press, 704 pages, $7,66, pocketbook sized, sales rank 330,000. Mainly terms, people, and dates but has a few maps also. Limited use but an alternative. I prefer the new Penguin book but this is the best history dictionary to buy.

Jack in Toronto

Reviews (5)

morbid comedy
Bill Knott is a great poet.His mind is just so zany.One of my favorite lines of his is "A comma is a period which leaks."

a brilliant and essential book
Every Bill Knott book I have read as been a liberating experience for me.He continues to redefine the "rules" of poetry.And puzzlingly, not many people have heard of him.Those who have read his work, always swear by it.I have yet to meet someone who had something bad to say about Knott's poetry.Unfortunately for all of us, almost all of his books are out of print.However, there are enough gems collected in this edition to illuminate your perception of poetry, and to turn you on to him for life--perhaps leaving you, like me, scrambling to buy his out-of-print works for rediculous prices.

Easily the best poet writing today.
Even Robert Pinsky says so, and, yet, astoundingly, every time I mention this man's name in mixed, literate company, people scratch their heads.

I'd like to respond to the accusation in the above PW review that his work "bleeds into inanity..."Maybe there's some truth in that, but so what?I find it both comforting and refreshing that words like "warty-poo" crop up in Knott's work.It's nice that in a medium that's so often sobre and bloated with self importance that there's someone out there who seems to be having FUN, for cripe's sake.These "inane" words and phrases add a little childish delight.What other poet will leave you moaning with heart break on one page and giggling with pleasure on the next.

Reviews (6)

On Merrill
Merrill requires no introduction.This is a splendid and comprehensive volume.It is a monolith, which commemorates the work of one of America's outstanding contemporary poets.

This collection includes some truly marvelous work: "The Drowning Poet," "Entrance From Sleep," "Poem in Spring," "Willow," "Walking At Night," "An Urban Convalescence," "The World and the Child," and "My Father's Irish Setters," to name a few.

I enthusiastically recommend this anthology.It serves as a means to remember that poetry of the Western hemisphere is capable of transcendent vision--that the Muses can still sing to twentieth century scribes.

Magnificent!
Though occassionally less perfect, these poems scratch the edges of brilliance with every sweep of the pen.They are immaculate, dense, allusive, elusive, and always beautiful.Spend two days with "Charles on Fire" alone and you'll understand why Merrill was--no, IS --so widely admired.You should own this book.

Reviews (19)

Outstanding, relevant and necessary
These particular selections of essays by the prolific and most caustic critics of the American Republic, has sat on my bookshelf since the early months of 1999. Included in this overwhelming collection are 114 essays, in some cases, randomly categorized into three chapters - State of Art, State of the Union and State of Being. Vidal is an intensely knowledgeable fellow, and therefore has an opinion on just about everything having to do with art, history, politics, the state of literature and his beloved Republic To attempt to read this entire tome (1271 pages) from start to finish over a few weeks (my original intention) proved to be impossible. Although informative and extremely entertaining, there was just too much to digest, too important to scan through, thus I would mark the essays read with a tick on the contents page, place the book back on the shelf, only to return when the time felt right to take them up again.

Vidal is not only a great historian, he is also one of America's great literary radicals. He was experimenting with the literary form, attempting to apply critical theory to the Novel very early in the piece with such works as Duluth, Mira Breckinridge and the post modern religious satire, Live from Golgotha. These were indeed "radical" departures from the standard fare of American novels coming out at the time. In mainstream circles, however, these novels were not well received, but were critically acclaimed, calling them subversive, iconoclastic, original and extremely funny.

As an essayist, Vidal really has no match in American letters. These essays reveal a master at the top of their form. What is interesting as well as admirable, Vidal was criticising literary theory which had infiltrated academia in the late 60's and early 70's, al la, post structuralism and deconstructionism, but unlike the so-called "experts" in the university's across the western world, (he calls them "Hacks of Academia") Vidal attempted to put these theories to the test in the form of a popular novel, (Duluth) and succeeded. In his essay, "French Letters -Theories of the Modern Novel", Vidal attacks these modern theorists, who state that language and literature as an art form is dead, in elegant prose and biting gusto, revealing their empty (headed) arguments,

"In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayer they chant, we shall go on for quite as long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps with silence or with new words." (1967, p.110)

In "The State of the Union" essays, Vidal expounds upon American politics and his views on the National Security Council, the CIA and America's on-going imperialistic intentions, which interestingly, have not dated in the least. Most of these essays are as relevant as ever despite the passing of over thirty years.

There is no doubt in my mind that reading Vidal is an education, showing us a way through the miasma of received wisdom, relentlessly thrown in our direction. In many respects Vidal is a beacon of light during dark times, a writer that has never pulled any punches when it came to the things he believed in, namely writing, politics and his beloved Republic. This book should be standard issue for anyone interested in literature, politics, art, and American history.

Gore Vidal, United States
First, for those readers solely interested in the quality of this essay collection, my advice is simple.If you enjoy the essay form, buy this collection!There is no better essayist alive.In the USA, Vidal stands beside Emerson, White and Trilling in exemplifying the power of the essay; and like them, his greatest quality is the intense, lasting relevancy of his argument, even when he deals with people or events long past.His vilification of Truman, for example, concentrates on the latter's founding the American security state, certainly a germane issue.

As for all this talk of Vidal's political affiliation, anyone who claims he is a conservative or a liberal in any normal sense of these words is simply wrong, and is unfortunately missing the purpose of Vidal's writing.Vidal firmly believes in the people and the ideals by which our nation was founded; but he is alone, as far as I know, in keeping himself free of worship.Jefferson, Adams, etc. were not perfect; and neither is democracy or republicanism.In our intensely polarized time, in which unthinking loyalty is a virtue, Vidal is exactly that type which he has often cheered throughout history, the brave heretic.Gore Vidal is our Orwell; his opinions may only occasionally be right, but anyone who ignores him is jeopardizing our relationship with the truth.

In addition to this collection, I also highly recommend *the last empire*, Vidal's collection of essays from 1992 to 2000.It is much shorted, and is actually a better introduction to the author.

Master Essayist At Work
United States, the 1993 Winner of the National Book Award, it covers the years from 1952 until 1992. This book shows that Vidal is an authority/reliable source in many areas. He served in WWII and wrote his first novel while doing so. He comes form a political background; his grandfather, blind Senator T.P. Gore, brought him up. He is related to Eleanor Roosevelt and was friendly with JFK. He ran for Congress in New York in 1960 and came in second in the California democratic primary in 1982. Furthermore, his father served as director of the Bureau of Air Commerce under FDR, which gave him insight into the forming of airlines and access to Charles Lindberg. He wrote his first novel at the age of 20 and has subsequently written 23 other novels, most of them historical novels in which he did significant research to get the details just right. He has numerous interesting insights into the lives of other writers as well as being capable of writing compelling book chat. He has also written for TV and the movies, as a result knows a lot of famous Hollywood movers and shakers. His heroes (John Quincy Adams, FDR, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bowles, Edmund Wilson, Charles Lindberg) and villains (Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, the CIA) are vividly drawn and expertly judged throughout.

Editorial Review

World Poetry is an incomparable collection in which the ancient and the contemporary are seamlessly interwoven; it is a cornucopia of surprises. When you turn to the Dante section, instead of finding excerpts from well-known versions of the Commedia, there are selections by poets such as Shelley, Howard Nemerov, Susan Mitchell, and James Schuyler.

World Poetry can be read in the light of Ezra Pound's dicta:points define a periphery. The editors scoured the archives for versions that would stand as poems on their own. When nothing met their standards, as in the case of Victor Hugo, Maurice Scève, or Gottfried Benn, they commissioned new translations. Louis Simpson gives new life to Hugo's famous poem about Napoleon's armies, "Expiation":

It was snowing, always snowing!The cold lash
Whistled.These warriors had no bread to eat,
They walked across the ice with naked feet.
No longer living hearts, they seemed to be
A dream lost in a fog, a mystery,
A march of shadows under a black sky.
Vast solitudes, appalling to the eye,
Stretched out, mute and revengeful, everywhere.

What are we really?Pain's return address.
A ball for luck, blindfolded, to kick around.
A flick of the switch.A stage darkened by fear.
A candle doused, snow melting on bare ground.
Life slips away like gossip or last night's joke.
..........................
Whatever breathes will vanish into air.
Our graves are large and lonely.What's left to say?
We're smoke that the wind has caught, and blown away.
(from "Misery," trans. Christopher Benfey)

Isbn: 0099753618
Sales Rank: 1663835
Subjects:  1. Fiction anthologies & collections    2. Modern fiction   

Editorial Review

It's small wonder that the Library of America chose Eudora Welty as the first living (at that time) author published in this prestigious series. Welty was the kind of writer people routinely call "an American institution." But don't let the sweet white-haired-old-lady image fool you: Welty's work is anything but benign. For more than 50 years, Welty spoke with a fierce and uncompromising literary voice. Or, rather, voices: the stories collected in this volume feature a dizzying array of characters, each of whom seems to whisper directly into the reader's ear. From the toxic rage of "Where Is the Voice Coming From?" to the jazzy rhythms of "Powerhouse," these tales blaze with intensity and a comic energy that's both gentle and fierce. Even that bane of junior-high-school speech tournaments everywhere, "Why I Live at the P.O.," benefits from rereading; as far as this brand of down-home farce goes, Welty does it better than anyone. Bringing together the contents of Welty's four short-fiction collections, this Library of America volume also includes several essays as well as Welty's very fine 1984 memoir, "One Writer's Beginnings." In it she speaks of connections, continuities, the way both her fiction and her experiences emerged gradually into focus over time:

...suddenly a light is thrown back, as when your train makes a curve, showing that there has been a mountain of meaning rising behind you on the way you've come, is rising there still, proven now through retrospect.

Reviews (10)

A compulsive read which is neither a novel nor a poem
It was odd to read this, because of timing.I had just read Mark Salzman's _Lost In Place_, a memoir of his quixotic youth which addresses the human need to make a mark in the face of mortality and frailty, and the ultimate futility of that need.Then I pick up this.Same theme, just as overtly stated.

However, though this book is entertaining, erudite, and thought-provoking, it doesn't do the job nearly as well as Salzman's hilarious story.The conceit is ultimately pretentious, and its melancholy narrator isn't very interesting.

A different way.
Markson quotes a conversation between an unnamed critic and Picasso.Critic:You can actually draw so beautifully.Why do you spend all your time making these queer things?Picasso:That's why.

Some artists are driven to find a different way.The older I get and the more conventional stories I have under my belt, the more I crave the work of these artists, for whom the pursuit of strangeness is a powerful mandate.I don't mean the merely weird or ugly--I'm talking about doing something new, or else finding a way to uncover the oddness in ordinary life.Overfamiliarity with the world is suffocating.

THIS IS NOT A NOVEL is a sly book.It appears to be little more than a miscellany of notes from Markson's reading, mixed with a few stray thoughts on the nature of this book he's writing.By the third page we know that he wants it to be characterless and plotless, "yet seducing the reader into turning pages nonetheless." I, for one, turned the pages happily, borne along by the flow of anecdote.But gradually in became apparent that what I was reading, finally, was an odd meditation on thephrase "timor mortis conturbat me"--refrain line from a poem by William Dunbar, "Lament for the Makers" [15th C.]The fear of death disturbs me.This is a novel about a writer trying to shake of the chill of approaching death.A strangely moving work.

leer life
One assumes that fans of David Markson's work will not be too disappointed by this latest book. I was not, though I admit I prefer his other writings to this. The book is structured as a sequence of sentences, often anecdotes describing the creative habits and deaths of an artistic pantheon. Sure, some will consider the book pretentious, but part of its glory is the effort of the writer, the central character, if any, who seems to be more of a reader, Markson, perhaps, and who puzzles and tries to be reconciled with his own impending mortality. Aside from the bounty of names, here and there an uncommon star appears, this book takes less cleverness to resolve into a thoughtful experience than other Markson books. Most dazzling, to be sure, is the variant structure of declarative sentences, often taken for granted. Some structures are continued repetitively, others, strikingly, challenge the rhythm the reader establishes. The sequences have the potential to mesmerize the patient and weary the rushed.