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Arriving as a young writer in an ancient Dutch town, Benjamin Moser
found himself visiting—casually at first, and then more and more
obsessively—the country’s great museums. Inside these old
buildings, he discovered the remains of the Dutch Golden Age and
began to unearth the strange, inspiring, and terrifying stories of
the artists who gave shape to one of the most luminous moments in
the history of human creativity. Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who
harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose
true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got
to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel
Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy
Hendrik Avercamp. And through their artwork, he got to know their
country, too: from the translucent churches of Pieter Saenredam to
Paulus Potter’s muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch’s
cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael’s tragic trees. Year after
year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands,
Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he
found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that
he was. Why do we make art? What even is art, anyway—and what is
an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does
it mean to fail? Is art a consolation—or a mortal danger? The
Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to
turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. This is
Holland and its great artists as we’ve never seen them before.
And it’s a sumptuously illustrated, highly personal
coming-of-age-story, twenty years in the making: a revealing
self-portrait by one of the most acclaimed writers of his
generation.
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The Apple in the Dark
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Benjamin Moser
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R558
R457
Discovery Miles 4 570
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“It’s the best one,” Clarice Lispector remarked on the
occasion of the publication of The Apple in the Dark: “I can’t
define it, how it is, I can only say that it’s much better
constructed than the previous ones.” A book in three chapters,
with three central characters, The Apple in the Dark is in fact
highly sculpted, while being chiefly a metaphysical book, and in
this stunning new translation, the novel’s mysteries and
allegories glow with a fresh scintillating light. Martim, fleeing
from a murder he believes he committed, plunges into the dark
nocturnal jungle: stumbling along, in a state of both fear and
wonder, eventually he comes to a remote, quiet ranch and finds work
with the two women who own it. The women are tranquil enough before
his arrival, but are affected by his radical mystery. Soaked
through with Martim’s inner night (his soul is in the darkness
where everything is created), the novel vibrates with his perpetual
searching state of vigil. Often he feels close to an epiphany:
“for the first time he was present in the moment in which
whatever is happening is happening.” Yet such flashes flicker
out, so he’s ever on the watch for “life to take on the
dimensions of a destiny.” In an interview, Lispector once said:
“I am Martim.” As she puts it in The Apple in the Dark: “All
I’ve got is hunger. And that unstable way of grasping an apple in
the dark—without letting it fall.”
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Complete Stories (Paperback)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Katrina Dodson; Edited by Benjamin Moser
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R669
R562
Discovery Miles 5 620
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Here, gathered in one volume, are the stories that made Clarice a
Brazilian legend. Originally a cloth edition of eighty-six stories,
now we have eighty- nine in all, covering her whole amazing career,
from her teenage years to her deathbed. In these pages, we meet
teenagers becoming aware of their sexual and artistic powers,
humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected
epiphanies, old people who don't know what to do with themselves-
and in their stories, Clarice takes us through their lives-and
hers-and ours.
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Agua Viva (Paperback)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Stefan Tobler; Preface by Benjamin Moser
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R377
R297
Discovery Miles 2 970
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A meditation on the nature of life and time, Agua Viva (1973) shows
Lispector discovering a new means of writing about herself, more
deeply transforming her individual experience into a universal
poetry. In a body of work as emotionally powerful, formally
innovative, and philosophically profound as Clarice Lispector s,
Agua Viva stands out as a particular triumph."
"That woman who killed the fish unfortunately is me," begins the
title story, but "if it were my fault, I'd own up to you, since I
don't lie to boys and girls. I only lie sometimes to a certain type
of grownup because there's no other way." Enumerating all the
animals she's loved-cats, dogs, lizards, chickens, monkeys-Clarice
finally asks: "Do you forgive me?" "The Mystery of the Thinking
Rabbit" is a detective story which explains that bunnies think with
their noses: for a single idea a bunny might "scrunch up his nose
fifteen thousand times" (he may not be too bright, but "he's not
foolish at all when it comes to making babies"). The third tale,
"Almost True," is a shaggy dog yarn narrated by a pooch who is very
worried about a wicked witch: "I am a dog named Ulisses and my
owner is Clarice." The wonderful last story, "Laura's Intimate
Life" stars "the nicest hen I've ever seen." Laura is "quite dumb,"
but she has her "little thoughts and feelings. Not a lot, but she's
definitely got them. Just knowing she's not completely dumb makes
her feel all chatty and giddy. She thinks that she thinks." A
one-eyed visitor from Jupiter arrives and vows Laura will never be
eaten: she's been worrying, because "humans are a weird sort of
person" who can love hens and eat them, too. Such throwaway wisdom
abounds: "Don't even get me started." These delightful,
high-hearted stories, written for her own boys, have charm to
burn-and are a treat for every Lispector reader.
Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and
haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates.
Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist,
Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Colas, and her rat of a boyfriend; she
would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed,
sickly and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet
he cannot avoid the realization that for all her outward misery,
Macabéa is inwardly free/She doesn't seem to know how unhappy she
should be. Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her
urbane, empty narrator—edge of despair to edge of despair—and,
working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader's
preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love and the art of
fiction. In her last book she takes readers close to the true
mystery of life and leave us deep in Lispector territory indeed.
The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector's consummate final novel,
may well be her masterpiece. Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo
S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of
Macabea, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio and
eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabea loves movies,
Coca-Cola, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like
Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved.
Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid the
realization that for all her outward misery, Macabea is inwardly
free. She doesn't seem to know how unhappy she should be. As
Macabea heads toward her absurd death, Lispector employs her
pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator-edge of despair
to edge of despair-and, working them like a pair of scissors, she
cuts away the reader's preconceived notions about poverty,
identity, love, and the art of fiction. In her last book she takes
readers close to the true mystery of life and leaves us deep in
Lispector territory indeed.
"A Meteor of Intelligent Substance""Something was Missing in our
Culture, and Here It Is""Liberties is THE place to be. Change
starts in the mind." Liberties, a journal of Culture and Politics,
is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and
political issues and causes of our time. Liberties features
serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by
significant writers and leaders throughout the world; new poetry;
and, introduces the next generation of writers and voices to
inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of
today's culture and politics. This issue of Liberties includes: new
work from Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa; drawings by
Leonard Cohen published for the first time; Mamtimin Ala's essay on
China's genocide of the Uyghurs; Jaroslaw Anders' analysis of the
crisis in Belarus; Cass R. Sunstein on liberalism inebriated;
Richard Thompson Ford on what slavery does and does not explain;
Sean Wilentz on the historical strategy of the Republican Party;
Benjamin Moser writes about translation as a form of tourism in
literary life; Jonathan Zimmerman on the scandal of college
teaching; Mark Lilla on cults of innocence and their victims; Helen
Vendler on Adrienne Rich; Holly Brewer on race and enlightenment;
David Thomson asks, What shall we watch now?; Celeste Marcus
(managing editor) on the legend of Alice Neel; Leon Wieseltier
(editor) on Zionism's beautiful stubbornness of survival; and new
poetry from Ange Mlinko and Shaul Tchernikhovsky, translated by
Robert Alter.
A charming and highly personal introduction to the artists of the
Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love
affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of the
place where he had ended up, Moser threw himself into the world of
the painters of the Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer
among them, and found himself confronting the bigger questions
those artists asked. Why do we make art, and why do we need it?
Who, and what, is an artist? How can art help us see ourselves and
others? And in a world without religion, can art provide a
substitute for God? As he explored the Dutch museums, Moser met a
crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the
intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Now, in this colourful,
brilliant and idiosyncratic book, he unveils the whole hidden world
of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress). The Upside-Down World is a
fun and learned guide to one of the greatest epochs of human
creativity: a book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious
tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries.
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The Imitation of the Rose (Hardcover)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Katrina Dodson; Edited by Benjamin Moser
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R270
R211
Discovery Miles 2 110
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short
stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers,
designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith Thirteen short
tales from one of the most blistering and innovative writers of the
twentieth century. The small incidents of life become moments of
inner revelation in the luminous writing of Clarice Lispector. A
woman contemplating a vase of roses after a nervous breakdown; a
tangled mother-daughter relationship; a man's abandonment of a dog;
an animal in a zoo: each one leads to mystery and self-discovery,
delight and devastation.
Lori, a primary school teacher, is isolated and nervous,
comfortable with children but unable to connect to adults. When she
meets Ulisses, a professor of philosophy, an opportunity opens: a
chance to escape the shipwreck of introspection and embrace the
love, including the sexual love, of a man. Her attempt, as Sheila
Heti writes in her afterword, is not only "to love and to be
loved," but also "to be worthy of life itself." Published in 1968,
An Apprenticeship is Clarice Lispector's attempt to reinvent
herself following the exhausting effort of her metaphysical
masterpiece The Passion According to G. H. Here, in this
unconventional love story, she explores the ways in which people
try to bridge the gaps between them, and the result, unusual in her
work, surprised many readers and became a bestseller. Some
appreciated its accessibility; others denounced it as sexist or
superficial. To both admirers and critics, the olympian Clarice
gave a typically elliptical answer: "I humanized myself," she said.
"The book reflects that."
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The Chandelier (Paperback)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Magdalena Edwards, Benjamin Moser
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R541
R472
Discovery Miles 4 720
Save R69 (13%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The Chandelier, written when Lispector was only twenty-three,
reveals a very different author from the college student whose
debut novel, Near to the Wild Heart, announced the landfall of
"Hurricane Clarice." Virginia and her cruel, beautiful brother,
Daniel, grow up in a decaying country mansion. They leave for the
city, but the change of locale leaves Virginia's internal life
unperturbed. In intensely poetic language, Lispector conducts a
stratigraphic excavation of Virginia's thoughts, revealing the
drama of Clarice's lifelong quest to discover "the nucleus made of
a single instant"-and displaying a new face of this great writer,
blazing with the vitality of youth.
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Hour of the Star (Paperback)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Benjamin Moser
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R243
R196
Discovery Miles 1 960
Save R47 (19%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist,
Macabea loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a
boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is
ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo
S.M., who tries to direct Macabea's fate but comes to realize that,
for all her outward misery, she is inwardly free. Slyly subverting
ideas of poverty, identity, love and the art of writing itself,
Clarice Lispector's audacious last novel is a haunting portrayal of
innocence in a bad world.
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A Breath of Life (Paperback)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Johnny Lorenz; Preface by Benjamin Moser
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R419
R345
Discovery Miles 3 450
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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A mystical dialogue between a male author (a thinly disguised
Clarice Lispector) and his/her creation, a woman named Angela, this
posthumous work has never before been translated. Lispector did not
even live to see it published.
At her death, a mountain of fragments remained to be structured
by Olga Borelli. These fragments form a dialogue between a god-like
author who infuses the breath of life into his creation: the
speaking, breathing, dying creation herself, Angela Pralini. The
work s almost occult appeal arises from the perception that if
Angela dies, Clarice will have to die as well. And she did."
"If anyone might be profitably compared to Clarice Lispector, it
might well be Maria Gabriela Llansol. This is because of the
fundamentally mystical impulse that animates them both, their
conception of writing as a sacred act, a prayer: their idea that it
was through writing that a person can reach 'the core of being.'" -
Benjamin Moser, author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice
Lispector "Llansol's text . . . creates spaces where conjecture and
counterfactual accounts operate freely granting a glimpse of an
alternative reality." Claire Williams, The Guardian Geography of
Rebels presents the English debut of three linked novellas from
influential Portuguese writer Maria Gabriela Llansol. With echoes
of Clarice Lispector, Llansol's novellas evoke her vision of
writing as life, conjuring historical figures and weaving together
history, poetry, and philosophy in a transcendent journey through
one of Portugal's greatest creative minds. Maria Gabriela Llansol
(1931-2008) is one of the preeminent Portuguese writers of the 20th
century, twice awarded the prize for best novel from the Portuguese
Writers' Association.
WINNER OF THE 2020 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY Selected as a Book
of the Year 2019 by the SPECTATOR, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN and
FINANCIAL TIMES 'Definitive and delightful' Stephen Fry 'There can
be no doubting the brilliance - the sheer explanatory vigour - of
Moser's biography... a triumph of the virtues of seriousness and
truth-telling that Susan Sontag espoused' New Stateman The
definitive portrait of one of the twentieth century's most towering
figures: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism
and her private face Susan Sontag was our last great literary star.
Her brilliant mind, political activism and striking image made her
an emblem of the seductions - and the dangers - of the
twentieth-century world. Her writing on art and politics, feminism
and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, Fascism
and Freudianism, Communism and Americanism, reflected the
conflicted meanings of a most conflicted word: modernity. She was
there when the Cuban Revolution began and the Berlin Wall came
down, in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel.
Sontag tells these stories and examines the work upon which her
reputation was based, exploring the private woman hidden behind the
formidable public face. Drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted
from Maui to Stockholm and from Manhattan to Sarajevo - and
featuring nearly one hundred images, many never seen before -
Sontag is the first book based on the writer's restricted archives,
and on access to many people who have never before spoken about
her, including Annie Leibovitz. It is an indelible portrait of one
of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers, who lived one of that
century's most romantic - and most anguished - lives.
Fascinating...seductive." --"The New York Times Book Review"
Chief of the Copacabana precinct Espinosa is more than happy to
interrupt his paperwork when a terrified young man arrives at the
station with a bizarre story. A psychic has predicted that he would
commit a murder, it seems, and the prediction has become fact in
the young man's mind. As the weather changes and the southwesterly
wind -- always a sign of dramatic change -- starts up, what at
first seems like paranoia becomes brutal reality. Two violent
murders occur, and their only link is the lonely, clever man who
had sought Espinosa out a few days earlier for help.
In "Southwesterly Wind," the third in this atmospheric, erotic
series featuring the inimitable Inspector Espinosa, Luiz Alfredo
Garcia-Roza once again "breathes fresh air into the crime novel
genre." ("Los Angeles Times")
"Beautifully sad and seductive."--"Chicago Tribune"
"Beguiling and ingenious."--"Kirkus Reviews"
"One of the pleasures of reading Garcia-Roza derives from watching
how he thwarts our narrative experiences. Throughout "Southwesterly
Wind," he shuffles and reshuffles a limited deck of secondary
characters to assemble startling patterns. [A] wry and poetic
voice."
--Maureen Corrigan, "Newsday"
Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza is a bestselling novelist who lives in Rio
de Janeiro.
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The Chandelier (Paperback)
Clarice Lispector; Translated by Benjamin Moser, Magdalena Edwards
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R312
R255
Discovery Miles 2 550
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Clarice Lispector's masterly second novel, now available in English
for the first time 'She found the best clay that one could desire:
white, supple, sticky, cold ... She would get a clear and tender
material from which she could shape a world' Like the clay from
which she sculpts figurines as a girl, Virginia is constantly
shifting and changing. From her dreamlike childhood on Quiet Farm
with her adored brother Daniel, through an adulthood where the past
continues to pull her back and shape her, she moves through life,
grasping for the truth of existence. Illuminating Virginia's
progress through intense flashes of image, sensation and
perception, The Chandelier, Lispector's landmark second novel, is a
disorienting and exhilarating portrait of one woman's inner life.
'Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing' Colm
Toibin Translated by Benjamin Moser and Magdalena Edwards
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