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A Reader's Manifesto
''A Reader's Manifesto'' is a 2002 book by B. R. Myers expanded from his essay in the July/August 2001 issue of ''The Atlantic Monthly'' magazine. Myers criticized what he saw as the growing pretentiousness of contemporary American literary fiction, especially in contrast to genre fiction. Contents Myers described the original article as "a light-hearted polemic" about modern literature. Myers was particularly concerned with what he saw as the growing pretentiousness of American literary fiction. He was skeptical about the value showcased by elaborate, allusive prose works and argued that what was praised as good writing was in fact the epitome of bad writing. His critique concentrated on Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Paul Auster, David Guterson, and Don DeLillo, all of whom enjoyed substantial acclaim from the literary establishment. Myers directed many of his harshest charges at literary critics for prestigious publications such as ''The New York Times Book Review'', whom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Reynolds Myers
Brian Reynolds Myers (born 1963), usually cited as B. R. Myers, is an American professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea, best known for his writings on North Korean propaganda. He is a contributing editor for ''The Atlantic'' and an opinion columnist for ''The New York Times'' and ''The Wall Street Journal''. Myers is the author of ''Han Sǒrya and North Korean Literature'' (Cornell, 1994), '' A Reader's Manifesto'' (Melville House, 2002), '' The Cleanest Race'' (Melville House, 2010), and ''North Korea's Juche Myth'' (Sthele Press, 2015). Early life and education Myers was born in New Jersey, near Fort Dix. His mother is British, and his father was a U.S. Army officer from Pennsylvania who served in South Korea as a military chaplain, often helping out local orphans. Myers is also a descendant of John F. Reynolds though his father. Myers spent his childhood in Bermuda and his high school youth in apartheid-era South Africa, and received ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timbuktu (novella)
''Timbuktu'' is a 1999 novella by Paul Auster. It is about the life of a dog, Mr Bones, who is struggling to come to terms with the fact that his homeless master is dying. The story, set in the early 1990s, is told through the eyes of Mr Bones, who, although not anthropomorphised, has an internal monologue in English. The story centres on his last journey with his ailing master, Willy G Christmas, to Baltimore, but the details of both of their early lives are told in flashback. The title of the book comes from the concept of the afterlife as proposed by Christmas, a self-titled poet, who believed it was a beautiful place called Timbuktu. A major running theme in the book is Mr Bones' worry that dogs will not go to Timbuktu, and he won't see Willy again after death. The novella also draws on themes of existentialism, finding purpose in one's life, and a meditation on late 20th century America. It has now been made into a play by Croatian director Borut Separovic. The novel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illusions Perdues
''Illusions perdues'' — in English, ''Lost Illusions'' — is a serial novel written by the French writer Honoré de Balzac between 1837 and 1843. It consists of three parts, starting in provincial France, thereafter moving to Paris, and finally returning to the provinces. The book resembles another of Balzac's greatest novels, ''La Rabouilleuse'' (''The Black Sheep'', 1842), that is set in Paris and in the provinces. It forms part of the ''Scènes de la vie de province'' in ''La Comédie humaine''. Background The novel's main character, Lucien Chardon, works as a journalist, and his friend David Séchard is a printer. These were both professions with which Balzac himself had experience. Balzac had started a printing business in Paris in 1826, which went bankrupt in 1828. His experiences influenced his description of David Séchard's working life."Introduction" by Herbert J. Hunt from Penguin Classics edition of ''Lost Illusions'', 1971 Balzac had bought the newspaper ''La Chro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Man Without Qualities
''The Man Without Qualities'' (german: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften; 1930–1943) is an unfinished modernist novel in three volumes and various drafts, by the Austrian writer Robert Musil. The novel is a "story of ideas", which takes place in the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's last days, and the plot often veers into allegorical digressions on a wide range of existential themes concerning humanity and feelings. It has a particular concern with the values of truth and opinion and how society organizes ideas about life and society. Though the book is well over a thousand pages long in its entirety, no one single theme dominates. Plot summary Part I, titled ''A Sort of Introduction'', is an introduction to the protagonist, a 32-year-old mathematician named Ulrich who is in search of a sense of life and reality but fails to find it. His ambivalence towards morals and indifference to life has brought him to the state of being "a man without qualities", depending on the outer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Victim (novel)
''The Victim'' is a novel by Saul Bellow published in 1947. As in much of Bellow's fiction, the protagonist is a Jewish man in early middle age. Leventhal lives in New York City. While his wife is away on family business, Leventhal is haunted by an old acquaintance who unjustly claims that Leventhal has been the cause of his misfortune. The story explores the men's evolving relationship, all while Leventhal is struggling to deal with his own family problems. Plot summary Asa Leventhal's wife Mary has left the city for a few weeks in order to help her elderly mother move from Baltimore to her old family home in the South. While she is away, Leventhal must take of many tasks of caring for himself which his wife would ordinarily undertake for him. The action of the story begins when Leventhal is at his job as a copy-editor and receives a frantic phone call from his sister-in-law. She tells him that his nephew is terribly ill and that she desperately needs his assistance. During t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Adventures Of Augie March
''The Adventures of Augie March'' is a picaresque novel by Saul Bellow, published in 1953 by Viking Press. It features the eponymous Augie March, who grows up during the Great Depression, and it is an example of ''Bildungsroman'', tracing the development of an individual through a series of encounters, occupations and relationships from boyhood to manhood. ''The Adventures of Augie March'' won the 1954 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. BFbr>"National Book Awards – 1954" National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-30. (With essay by Nathaniel Rich from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) Both ''Time'' magazine and the Modern Library Board named it one of the hundred best novels in the English language. Plot summary The story describes Augie March's growth from childhood to a fairly stable maturity. Augie, with his brother Simon and the mentally abnormal George have no father and are brought up by their mother, who is losing her eyesight, and a tyrannical, grandmother-li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Those Barren Leaves
''Those Barren Leaves'' is a satirical novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1925. The title is derived from the poem "The Tables Turned" by William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ... which ends with the words: :Enough of Science and of Art; :Close up those barren leaves; :Come forth, and bring with you a heart :That watches and receives. Stripping the pretensions of those who claim a spot among the cultural elite, it is the story of Mrs. Aldwinkle and her entourage, who are gathered in an Italian palace to relive the glories of the Renaissance. For all their supposed sophistication, they are nothing but sad and superficial individuals in the final analysis. The work entered the public domain in the United States in 2021, but remains under copyright u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
To The Lighthouse
''To the Lighthouse'' is a 1927 novel by Virginia Woolf. The novel centres on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920. Following and extending the tradition of modernist novelists like Marcel Proust and James Joyce, the plot of ''To the Lighthouse'' is secondary to its philosophical introspection. Cited as a key example of the literary technique of multiple focalization, the novel includes little dialogue and almost no direct action; most of it is written as thoughts and observations. ''To the Lighthouse'' is made up of three powerfully charged visions into the life of the Ramsay family, living in a summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland. There's maternal Mrs. Ramsay, the highbrow Mr. Ramsay, their eight children, and assorted holiday guests. From Mr. Ramsay's seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse, Virginia Woolf examines tensions and allegiances and shows that the small joys and quiet tragedie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rick Moody
Hiram Frederick Moody III (born October 18, 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel ''The Ice Storm'', a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought him widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into the film ''The Ice Storm''. Many of his works have been praised by fellow writers and critics alike. Early life and education Moody was born in New York City to banker and investment strategist Hiram Frederick Moody, Jr., and Margaret Maureen, daughter of Francis Marion Flynn, president and publisher of ''The New York News''. The Moody family were resident in Maine for generations from around 1680; Moody's father was born there, but his parents subsequently lived at Winchester, Massachusetts. Moody grew up in several Connecticut suburbs, including Darien and New Canaan, where he later set stories and novels. He graduated from St. Paul's School in New Hampshi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jay McInerney
John Barrett "Jay" McInerney Jr. (; born January 13, 1955) is an American novelist, screenwriter, editor, and columnist. His novels include '' Bright Lights, Big City'', ''Ransom'', '' Story of My Life'', ''Brightness Falls'', and ''The Last of the Savages''. He edited ''The Penguin Book of New American Voices'', wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of ''Bright Lights, Big City'', and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film ''Gia'', which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for '' House & Garden'' magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in ''Bacchus & Me'' (2000) and ''A Hedonist in the Cellar'' (2006). His most recent novel is titled '' Bright, Precious Days'', published in 2016. From April 2010 he was a wine columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal''. In 2009, he published a book of short stories which spanned his entire career, titled ''How It Ended'', which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Janet Maslin of ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. His books, written and published from the 1920s to the 1940s, vividly reflect on American culture and the mores of that period, filtered through Wolfe's sensitive, sophisticated, and hyper-analytical perspective. After Wolfe's death, contemporary author William Faulkner said that Wolfe might have been the greatest talent of their generation for aiming higher than any other writer. Wolfe's influence extends to the writings of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, and of authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth, among others. He remains an important writer in modern American literature, as one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction, and is considered North C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
