A precipizio negli abissi


Book Description

Oliver sapeva raccontare le storie in un modo davvero coinvolgente e aveva uno strano modo di farlo: parlava sempre come se fossi io il protagonista dei suoi racconti. Amava profondamente il mare ed io, appena potevo, correvo da lui ad ascoltare le sue storie. Una volta me ne raccontò una che non dimenticherò mai: parlava degli abissi e delle bizzarre forme di vita che li popolano. Mi fece vivere un’avventura che mi permise di scoprire le bellezze di questo mondo sconosciuto e di apprezzarne le infinite sfumature cogliendo quella sottile differenza che distingue l’impossibile dall’improbabile. L’IDEA RACCONTATA DALL’AUTORE “Tutto è iniziato da un piccolo problema di compensazione ad un orecchio che mi impediva di scendere nelle profondità del mare. Non potevo resistere, desideravo con tutte le forze tornare ad immergermi in apnea ma non potevo: i dottori mi dissero che avrei dovuto aspettare almeno 3 mesi. Era un tempo assolutamente troppo lungo così ho deciso di solcare le profondità con la fantasia visitando luoghi davvero incredibili. Alla fine ci sono voluti 8 mesi per finire il libro e altrettanti per tornare in mare, ma in fondo ne è valsa la pena. Il libro è stato un modo per ricordare e ordinare tutte le emozioni che il mare mi ha regalato e in più la prima volta che ho rimesso la testa sotto a quel manto blu incantato ho provato una sensazione davvero magica: mi sembrava una favola e probabilmente lo era e lo è ancora oggi.”




Sabbath's Theater


Book Description

He is relentlessly defiant. He is exceedingly libidinous. His appetite for the outrageous is insatiable. He is Mickey Sabbath, the aging, raging powerhouse whose savage effrontery and mocking audacity are at the heart of Philip Roth's astonishing new novel. Sabbath's Theater tells Mickey's story in the wake of the death of his mistress, an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring exceeds even his own. Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Mickey is now in his mid-sixties and besieged by ghosts - of his mother, his beloved brother, his vanished first wife, his mistress of thirteen years. Bereft and grieving, he embarks on a turbulent journey back into his past, one that brings him to the brink of madness and extinction. But no matter how ardently he courts death, he is too exuberantly alive to succeed at dying. Sabbath's Theater is a comic creation of epic proportions, and Mickey Sabbath is its gargantuan hero. This book, which presents Philip Roth at the peak of his powers, is sur




Carmina Liber IV


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Works


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Death Or Deception


Book Description

Examining the key works of Buzzati and Morante, Siddell looks at two coexisting and conflicting approaches: one which defined place as an outcome of individual perception, and another in which place is understood as an arrangement of locations separate from the individual. The progression of Buzzati's texts from plausible indications of location to perception-bound space is examined, as is Morante's use of enclosed spaces as the basis of a conceptualisation of elsewhere, paying attention to the contrast and interaction between opposing constructs of place.




Pescara Tales (1902)


Book Description

The setting for his collection of eighteen stories by Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) was the Adriatic seaport of Pescara and its hinterland in the Italian region of Abruzzo, the author depicting events and personalities from the time of his youth, but also drawing from bygone incidents that were yet memorable in the area's folk history. Pescara may not have had the cachet of celebrated cities such as Venice or Florence, but sympathetically and wryly revealed here by the pen of one of Italy's great writers it lives and breathes with a vitality probably best compared to that of James Joyce's 'dear dirty Dublin'. Indeed Joyce, who admired D'Annunzio, may well have been inspired by the Italian's cameos of small-town life, his parade of saints, voluptuaries and reprobates, their repressions, obsessions, individual dissolutions, collective explosions of anarchy, and their aptness for bizarre behavior that extended from the catatonic to the manic. D'Annunzio came to recognize just how exotic his native region was after he had left it for Rome, where he worked for some years as a journalist and essay writer in the employ of various literary magazines. His Abruzzo articles, and especially those in which he records examples of extraordinary devotional behavior (akin to what Mark Twain was witnessing at that time on the banks of the Ganges), became the basis of the stories in this collection. D'Annunzio was a published poet at the age of sixteen, and his verse has never been absent from the Western Canon since. Something of his painterly style, the layered brushwork of his descriptions, the gorgeous romantic renderings of rural scenes and the moods of the sea, his celebrations of sensuality, his aesthete's fascination with all the possible bodily conditions, from the virginal-voluptuous to the decayed and moribund (he has been hailed as 'the body's poet'), will amaze and delight the reader even in the blandest and most dictionary-dependent translation. The present one is no such, however. Vladislav Zhukov is an experienced translator who has rendered works from four languages into English, including a substantial book of poetry, three volumes of short stories, and a novel (all available on Amazon.com). His knowledge of Italian is that of someone who acquired the language while living in Italy during his youth.




Guide to Listening


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Socially Symbolic Acts


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This book discusses issues of broad cultural consequence by examining the work of three of Italy's most prominent living novelists, Umberto Eco, Vincenzo Consolo, and Antonio Tabucchi. The introductory chapter continues a discussion of some of the topics already broached in the author's Narrating Postmodern Time and Space (1997). It uses an approach that is both historicist and psychoanalytic to critically address topics in cultural studies and Italian studies. The book deals with fictions of very recent publication, many of which have been published after the turn of the millennium, filling important gaps in the critical bibliography. Close readings relate texts to their historical and cultural contexts, critiquing their ideology while preserving their Utopian moments.




Fra storia e leggenda


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Letters of a Peruvian Woman


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'It has taken me a long time, my dearest Aza, to fathom the cause of that contempt in which women are held in this country ...' Zilia, an Inca Virgin of the Sun, is captured by the Spanish conquistadores and brutally separated from her lover, Aza. She is rescued and taken to France by Déterville, a nobleman, who is soon captivated by her. One of the most popular novels of the eighteenth century, the Letters of a Peruvian Woman recounts Zilia's feelings on her separation from both her lover and her culture, and her experience of a new and alien society. Françoise de Graffigny's bold and innovative novel clearly appealed to the contemporary taste for the exotic and the timeless appetite for love stories. But by fusing sentimental fiction and social commentary, she also created a new kind of heroine, defined by her intellect as much as her feelings. The novel's controversial ending calls into question traditional assumptions about the role of women both in fiction and society, and about what constitutes 'civilization'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.