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Fiction - Modern Literature Books
| Dalby, Liza: The Tale of Murasaki
Book Number: 28364
Chatto and Windus, 2000 8vo softcover 342pp very good. Amazon.co.uk Review: As I pondered this question of how to be a success at court, I came to the conclusion that literary ambition was more likely than not to bring a woman to a bad end. Liza Dalby's enchanting book The Tale of Murasaki is a brilliantly imagined fictional biography of the 11th-century Japanese writer Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji--the world's first novel. The Heian period produced at least two great works of world literature: Murasaki's The Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book; Dalby's fine first novel draws directly from the surviving fragments of Murasaki's own diary and poetry (as well as the occasional echo of Sei Shonagon) to create a vivid and emotionally detailed portrait of an intelligent, sensitive and complex woman drawn initially to writing stories about the amorous encounters of Prince Genji as a means of entertaining her friends and expressing her own richly creative temperament. As the stories become public, however, she is forced, against her own natural reticence, to take up a position at court, and the Genji stories become a conduit for commenting on the mores and intrigues of court life. Struggling to write and to stay true to her literary vision, her last tales are inflected by Buddhist thought on the transience and beauty of the world.nn I have always felt compelled to set down a vision of things I have heard and seen. Life itself has never been enough. It only became real for me when I fashioned it into stories. Yet, somehow, despite all I've written, the true nature of things I've tried to grasp in my fiction still manages to drift through the words and sit, like little piles of dust, between the lines.nn Dalby is an anthropologist by trade: research for her first study Geisha gained her the distinction of being the only Westerner to have trained in that much misunderstood profession, and she was a consultant on Steven Spielberg's film of Arthur Golden's best-selling novel Memoirs of a Geisha. Following a second study, Kimono, Dalby has turned her attention to fiction with admirable results, reinvigorating the genre of the historical novel with a narrative that combines meticulous research with emotional acuity. Recreating the intricate world of 11th-century Japan--the political and sexual machinations, the preoccupations with clothing and custom, the difficult and tenuous position of courtiers, the intensity of female friendships in a male-dominated society--Dalby shows us how Murasaki's sensibilities were shaped by and responded to the culture in which she lived.nn A rich and convincing debut book, then: and if, in addition, readers are moved to read the works of Murasaki and Sei Shonagon themselves, Dalby is to be congratulated all the more fulsomely for reminding us of the work of these great writers. --Burhan Tufail. nn Synopsisn Arguably the world's first novelist, Murasaki Shikibu wrote "The Tale of Genji" in the 11th century. Liza Dalby's novel is based on existing fragments of Murasaki's diary and poems and is a fictional account of Japan's most famous female writer.
Keywords: Fiction The Tale of Murasaki Dalby Liza
Price: $11.00 |
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| Cowan, Andrew: Crustaceans
Book Number: 28493
London Sceptre, 2000 8vo hardcover 231pp index, b/w illus. very good / very good d/w. Amazon.co.uk Review: The eponymous crustaceans of Andrew Cowan's third novel are not only the hard-shelled sea creatures of sandy English shorelines, but the hard-lipped, reticent characters who believe that saying nothing is preferable to stirring up any kind of emotion. It begins with a stark cold melancholy--"December and one foot of snow." Paul, once married and a father, drives to the seaside in winter, sleeps "thinly" and talks constantly to his son, Euan. Except Euan is no longer there. On route, Paul remembers his own boyhood, his taciturn, self-absorbed father, whose "eyes flared out at me, his sculptor's eyes, as if I too were a piece of metal he could twist into shape". Paul's mothering was haphazard and inadequate, making him an over-concerned parent, obsessively detailing all aspects of Euan's life with the zeal that accompanies the firstborn: "I was always too keen to instruct you, and too conscious by far of the life you'd grow out of ... I treated you like history." Becoming his curator, the father collects hagstones, cowries and tellins for the son, and learns to emerge from his shell and love for the first time: "I'd never been happier, more at home in myself ... I was what you'd made me..." Paul tries to become everything his father failed to be but is haunted by his mother's mysterious illness and death, which the family refuses to explain. The absence of mother and son are delicately balanced with the reader experiencing some of Paul's frustration and bewilderment as the author withholds the reasons for Euan's absence until the novel's close. The intimate second person address makes Euan pressingly alive, "For you there was only ever what next", although Paul's relationship with his wife Ruth is less well drawn, making the character's isolation even more complete. Crustacean's understated power lies in its ability to show how rigorous self-preservation can inhibit one's capacity for love.
Keywords: Fiction Crustaceans Cowan Andrew
Price: $18.00 |
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| Rushdie, Salman.: The Moor's last sigh
Book Number: 28613
London Jonathan Cape 1995 8vo hardcover 437pp. very good / very good d/w.
Keywords: Fiction The Moor's last sigh Rushdie Salman
Price: $18.00 |
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| Greene, Graham: The Third Man and The Fallen Idol. Two entertainments and forewords by the author.
Book Number: 28625
London, Heinemann, 1950. First edition. 8vo. black cloth hardcover. 188pp. very good, owner''s inscription on fep dated 1950, endpapers browned, spine slightly slanted. / fair-good d/w, missing 5mm strip top of spine and a 5cm across, 2cm down triangular piece on top spine corner of front panel, chipped corners.' ' '
Keywords: graham green novel modern literature fiction
Price: $250.00 |
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| Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer: In Search of Love and Beauty
Book Number: 28753
Penguin Books, 1984 8vo softcover 192pp very good, page edges slightly browned.
Keywords: Fiction In Search of Love and Beauty Jhabvala Ruth Prawer
Price: $9.00 |
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| Kita, Morio: Ghosts: A Tale of Childhood and Youth
Book Number: 28754
Kodansha Europe 1995 8vo softcover 200pp very good.
Keywords: Fiction Ghosts A Tale of Childhood and Youth Kita Morio japanese literature fiction
Price: $12.00 |
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| BRAITHWAITE, E.R.: To Sir With Love.
Book Number: 29008
London: The Bodley Head. 1959. 5th 8vo. hardcover. 188pp. very good,small owner''s name on fep. / very good, lightly foxed d/w.' ' '
Keywords: fiction modern literature novel
Price: $28.00 |
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| Fowles, John: Mantissa
Book Number: 29022
London Jonathan Cape 1982 8vo hardcover 192pp. very good / good d/w. A deeply serious novelist is subjected to ultimately tragic sufferings by his shamelessly uncooperative muse, who is given to distractions, sulks, and unexpected lapses in memory and who demands equal play for equal work.
Keywords: Fiction Mantissa Fowles John
Price: $22.00 |
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| Murdoch, Iris: An accidental man
Book Number: 29030
New York Viking Press January 1972 8vo hardcover 442pp. very good / good d/w. The the story of the comic and yet relentless struggle for survival of Austin Gibson Grey, the accidental man. He is one of those people who needs to survive through the destruction of others.
Keywords: Fiction Literature Literary An accidental man Murdoch Iris
Price: $33.00 |
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| Roth, Philip: Sabbath's Theatre
Book Number: 29228
London. Cape. 1995 8vo hardcover 451pp. very good / very good d/w. A new novel from the author of OPERATION SHYLOCK, telling the story of Mickey Sabbath, a disgraced puppeteer, who embarks on a journey into madness and bitter understanding, after the death of his long-time mistress.
Keywords: Fiction Sabbath's Theatre Roth Philip
Price: $25.00 |
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