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Lanark: A Life in Four Books (Canongate Classics)
Alasdair Gray Manufacturer: Canongate Pub. ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1841951838 |
Book Description
From its first publication in 1981, Lanark was hailed as a masterpiece and it has come to be widely regarded as the most remarkable and influential Scottish novel of the second half of the twentieth century. A work of extraordinary imagination and wide-ranging concerns, its playful narrative conveys at its core a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to love, and yet our compulsion to go on trying. With its echoes of Dante, Blake, Joyce, Kafka, and Lewis Carroll, Lanark has been published all over the world and to unanimous acclaim. This edition marks the novel's return to its original publisher and features a superb new introduction by the award-winning novelist Janice Galloway, and the author's Tailpiece, a fascinating addendum to the novel. "It was time Scotland produced a shattering work of fiction in the modern idiom. This is it." -- Anthony Burgess "Alasdair Gray is one of the most important living writers in English." -- Stephen Bernstein, The New York Times Book Review "Remarkable ... Lanark is a work of loving and vivid imagination, yielding copious riches." -- William Boyd, The Times Literary Supplement (London) "Undoubtedly the best work of fiction written by a Scottish author for decades." -- Time Out (London) "A quite extraordinary achievement, the most remarkable thing in Scottish fiction for a very long time." -- The ScotsmanCustomer Reviews:
A True Modern Classic.......2006-07-03
Authors: D. Baize
Catalog: Book
Media: Relié
Release Date: 04 February, 2004
Publisher: INRA
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titute to ask them to save Unthank, which has suffered a pollution spill that threatens to destroy the place. At the institute he is stitched up by his rivals and finds time to meet the author of the book, who spends a chapter trying to explain what the hell the book is about. Lanark returns from the institute to Unthank in time to witness the place destroyed.
Books one and two in the middle tell the story of Duncan Thaw (Lanark before arriving in book three) and surprisingly this part of the book is a lot more readable. The chapters follow Thaw as he grows from a child to a sickly adult. There are some parallels with the Lanark story (Thaw is emotionally inhibited, he suffers an illness as a result, he can't keep hold of the girl he likes). In my opinion, if this story stood alone it would be a much more satisfying read. It's very reminiscent of the writer Iain Banks who no doubt was inspired by Gray. Interesting also the split between contemporary fiction and sci-fi which Banks also practices. However, in my opinion, a book like Walking On Glass by Banks is far superior to Lanark in that it made me think about the connections between the strands of the stories.
I suppose my review is a little biased because I'm not a huge fan of science fiction any more. But since the author asserts in his incarnation as god in the final chapters that he doesn't write science fiction I suppose I shouldn't worry.
A bleak yet compelling vision of survival.......2003-02-09
Daunting to be the first.......2003-01-11
I first heard of this book from a Village Voice article about the republication of "Lanark" in a four-volume set. The structure of this edition is that it begins with Book 3, followed by the Prologue, Book 1, Book 2, and Book 4 is divided by an Epilogue that takes place 4 chapters from the end. This convoluted structure actually makes the book rather fascinating, in that Gray has said that he wishes for the book to be remembered in a certain order, which is why he put "Book 3" first. This edition also features artworks by the artist at the front of each Book, and the Epilogue features some interesting typesetting.
For readers of science fiction, this book will offer an interesting challenge, for books 1 and 2 are more a coming-of-age of the artist sort of affair. Books 3 and 4 center around the Lanark character, who is called Thaw in 1 and 2. The Thaw books reminded me many times of Maugham and Joyce, while 3 and 4 seemed positively Dickian. (Not to be confused with Dickensian, which slant-applies, if at all.) There's a lot of ferocious literariness going on in this book, yet there's all sorts of humor. And also a slice of life in a city I know absolutely nothing about. The depictions and commentary on Glasgow reveal a lot about the self-consciousness of 2nd-tier and below cities--the cities that are not New York, London, Florence, Paris, Moscow, etc.
I found this a wise book, filled with difficult ideas and a morose feel for the future of mankind and the difficulties of being a solitary individual in the anomie-infested modern civilization. Book 4 I think is a fascinating attempt to turn Hobbes's Leviathan into a sentient being, as viewed by the hapless adventures of the eponymous hero. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.
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The Trick Is to Keep Breathing: A Novel
Janice Galloway Manufacturer: Dalkey Archive Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1564780813 |
Amazon.com
Drama teacher Joy Stone is losing her grip. In a captivating story of the onset and evolution of depression, her problems accumulate, denial activates, and food becomes a major player. Through the wit and irony that is gaining international applause, Galloway crafts the chicken-or-egg dilemma of life in our times and being depressed. Yet even through her growing obsessions and the metamorphoses of family and friends into suspicious characters, Galloway's main character and the reader find that the trick in living rests with the simplest things.Customer Reviews:
This is the best book I've ever read........2005-07-15
A book u HAVE to read unless ur crazy.......2003-09-15
Haunting.......2002-03-11
An amazing noveloffering insight regarding female depression.......2000-12-05
Painful, but So Beautiful.......2000-05-19
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Studio 100, niveau 1, pour la classe (CD audio)
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essionistic matter. However, I definitely feel that although the book is alive with detail of 19th century musical life, the book loses some appeal b/c it completely seems to characterize Clara as a victim of both her father and Robert. Both men are presented as villians in most points of the book. Even though you could argue that the book is balanced (b/c we are shown how life is like through Robert's eyes) there seems to clear agenda of showing how Clara was forced to give up her musical career, when in fact she did not completely give it up in real life.
Janice Galloway's novel, "Clara" (2002), introduces the reader to a remarkable woman and to her times. Clara was the daughter of Frederick Wieck, a notable piano teacher, and of a woman who left Wieck to marry another man when Clara was young. Clara Wieck was a child prodigy with virtuosic ability at the piano. At the time, the role of piano virtuoso was just coming into its own. Clara fell in love with the great romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856), ten years her senior, when Schumann was a student of Wieck. Her father bitterly opposed the marriage, but the couple persevered and were married with permission from the German courts. The marriage was difficult, as Robert needed absolute quiet in order to compose and was moody and tempramental to say the least. The couple had eight children, and Clara proved determined to pursue her calling as a concert artist. Schumann's instability gradually lead to insanity and he was institutionalized for the last years of his life following a failed suicide attempt. The novel covers Clara's life up through the death of Robert Schumann with only brief allusions to her life as a concert pianist following his death. Clara outlived Robert by 40 years. This book presents a complelling picture of lives filed with the love of music. Robert was a highly gifted composer while Clara devoted her great talents to the art of interpretation. Ms. Galloway shows well the vicissitudes of the creative life, both for the composer and the interpreter. The book is love story, rarer than might be supposed in today's world, presenting a picture of a gifted couple's devotion to each other. In particular, it presents a compelling portrait of Clara Schumann with her devotion to a difficult individual through his descent into psychosis. Ms. Galloway stays close to the facts of her story, gets inside her characters, and avoids the temptation to judge or to editorialize based upon the values of another age. She presents balanced portraits of the characters in her story and allows the reader to see the nuances and ambiguities inherent in all human conduct. For example, Ms. Galloway lets the reader see that Wieck had a point, after all, in his doubts about the marriage and about Robert's mental instability which was surely visible over the years. Ms. Galloway also points out Clara's growing devotion to what she was born to do -- play the piano -- and how her independence sometimes rested uneasily with her love and commitment to Robert. Her love for Robert was surely the most important force in her life. The novel moves slowly at times, but it builds as it progresses in both writing style and in depth of understanding. The novel does an outstanding job in linking the events of Clara and Robert's lives into their music. I enjoyed the treatment of Robert Schumann's "Carnaval", a great work for the solo piano and a favorite of mine, his song cycles, piano concerto, symphonies, and other compositions which receive thoughtful attention in the book. The paperback edition of this book includes some good questions suitable for book groups together with a revealing interview with Ms. Galloway. The book shows how music and creativity enable people to reach the best of what is in them and to transcend the pain of sorrow and suffering and the banalities of the everyday. I found this book a moving presentation of the love of a woman and a man for each other and of the love of both for music. I was both inspired by the story of Clara's life and also moved to revisit Clara's music and the music of her tormented but gifted husband.
Amazon.com From the beginning this novel's tension weaves warp and woof between hilarity and hell. Two women friends travel through France, encountering backroad-European misogynist crudities and the awkward experiences of being female, over thirty, with your teeth almost literally at your closest friend's throat, and "fancying men, but not liking them very much." Throughout Rona's random acts of innocent irritation and Cassie's caustic reactions, the funny and fumbled art of their compassion supersedes self-slaughter, stretches itself thin, but refuses to puncture, throughout years of pals together both on holiday and in troubled spirit.Book Description Winner of the McVitie Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Book AwardWhen it was first published in Great Britain, Foreign Parts was described as "a road movie for feminists . . . a funny, sharp and gutsy portrayal of female friendship," and "a painstakingly crafted, multi-layered investigation of contemporary female experience." What begins as a driving holiday in Northern France for two Scotswomen turns into a caustic and funny account of dysfunctional relationshipsboth between men and women and between women friends. Cassie and Ronain their late thirties, both single and childlessare on each other's nerves from the moment they cross the Channel: Cassie is testy and cynical, Rona patient and plodding. Both are self-conscious of the fact that they seem to fit the stereotype of two "spinsters" linked by loneliness, and consequently rebel against the notion that a woman needs a man to feel "complete." Faced with the dilemma of "fancying men and not liking them very much," the women ponder alternatives as they endure one tourist nightmare after another. Customer Reviews:
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eally, you do.
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