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Second Thoughts (Butor Novel)
''Second Thoughts'' () is a novel by Michel Butor first published in French in 1957. It is the author's most famous work. It was translated into English by Jean Stewart, with the title ''Second Thoughts'' (Faber and Faber, 1958) as well as under the titles ''A Change of Heart'' (Simon & Schuster, 1959) and ''Changing Track'' (Calder, 2017; revised translation). Plot summary The plot is quite straightforward: a middle-aged man takes the train in Paris to visit his lover, Cécile, whom he has not informed of his arrival, in Rome. They have met in secret once a month for the past two years: each time that his business trips have taken him to the Italian capital. He now intends to tell her that he has finally decided to leave his wife, found a job for her (Cécile) in Paris and is ready to take her back there and live with her. The novel describes his gradual change of mind. His initial enthusiasm and hopes of a rejuvenating new start slowly give way to doubt, fear and cowardice. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Butor
Michel Butor (; 14 September 1926 – 24 August 2016) was a French poet, novelist, teacher, essayist, art critic and translator. Life and work Michel Marie François Butor was born in Mons-en-Barœul, a suburb of Lille, the third of seven children. His parents were Émile Butor (1891–1960), a railroad inspector and Anna ( Brajeux, 1896–1972). He studied philosophy at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, graduating in 1947. He taught in Egypt, Manchester, Thessaloniki, the United States, and Geneva. He won many literary awards for his work, including the Prix Fénéon and the Prix Renaudot. Journalists and critics have associated his novels with the nouveau roman, but Butor himself long resisted that association. The main point of similarity is a very general one, not much beyond that; like exponents of the nouveau roman, he can be described as an experimental writer. His best-known novel, ''La Modification'', for instance, is written entirely in the second person. In his 1967 '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faber And Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Milan Kundera, and Kazuo Ishiguro. Founded in 1929, in 2006 the company was named the KPMG Publisher of the Year. Faber and Faber Inc., formerly the American branch of the London company, was sold in 1998 to the Holtzbrinck company Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG). Faber and Faber ended the partnership with FSG in 2015 and began distributing its books directly in the United States. History Faber and Faber began as a firm in 1929, but originates in the Scientific Press, owned by Sir Maurice and Lady Gwyer. The Scientific Press derived much of its income from the weekly magazine ''The Nursing Mirror.'' The Gwyers' desire to expand into trade publishing led them to Geoffrey Fab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second-person Narrative
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot (the series of events). Narration is a required element of all written stories ( novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.), with the function of conveying the story in its entirety. However, narration is merely optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows, and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action. The narrative mode encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration: * ''Narrative point of view, perspective,'' or ''voice'': the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether or not the narrator and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fontainebleau Forest
The forest of Fontainebleau (french: Forêt de Fontainebleau, or ''Forêt de Bière'', meaning "forest of heather") is a mixed deciduous forest lying southeast of Paris, France. It is located primarily in the arrondissement of Fontainebleau in the southwestern part of the department of Seine-et-Marne. Most of it also lies in the canton of Fontainebleau, although parts of it extend into adjoining cantons, and even as far west as the town of Milly-la-Forêt in the neighboring department, Essonne. Several ''communes'' lie within the forest, notably the towns of Fontainebleau and Avon. The forest has an area of . History Forty thousand years ago, nomadic populations settled around the forest. Various traces of their presence have been discovered: carved stone tools, bones of such animals as bears, elephants, rhinos, giant stags. More than 2,000 caves with rock carvings are scattered across the forest. They are attributed to all periods between the Upper Paleolithic (aroun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Veneur
The Grand Veneur de France or Grand Huntsman of France was a position in the King's Household in France during the Ancien Régime. The word French "veneur" ( huntsman), derives from the Middle French word "vener" (to hunt), (itself from the Latin ''venor'', verb meaning ''to hunt''), from which also was derived the archaic English words "venerer" (hunter) and "venery" (the hunt). The position is sometimes grouped with the Great Officers of the Crown of France. The position was one of the " Great Offices of the Maison du Roi". The position was equivalent to that of the "Grand Master of the Hunt" in certain European royal households. The ''Grand Veneur'' was responsible for the royal hunt. The title was created in 1413 by Charles VI at roughly the same time as those of Grand Falconer of France and the "Capitaine du vautrait". The ''Grand Veneur'' took care of the king's hunting dogs (roughly 100 hounds) for the stag hunt. Under Charles VIII, he oversaw nine squires (''écuy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leitmotiv
A leitmotif or leitmotiv () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is an anglicization of the German ''Leitmotiv'' (), literally meaning "leading motif", or "guiding motif". A musical motif has been defined as a "short musical idea ... melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic, or all three", a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity." In particular, such a motif should be "clearly identified so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances" whether such modification be in terms of rhythm, harmony, orchestration or accompaniment. It may also be "combined with other leitmotifs to suggest a new dramatic condition" or development. The technique is not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian The Apostate
Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate in Christian tradition. A nephew of Constantine, Julian was one of few in the imperial family to survive the purges and civil wars during the reign of Constantius II, his cousin. Julian became an orphan as a child after his father was executed in 337, and spent much of his life under Constantius's close supervision.''Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity'', "Julian the Apostate", p. 839 However, the emperor allowed Julian to freely pursue an education in the Greek-speaking east, with the result that Julian became unusually cultured for an emperor of his time. In 355, Constantius II summoned Julian to court and appointed him to rule Gaul. Despite his inexperience, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prix Renaudot
The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot () is a French literary award. History The prize was created in 1926 by ten art critics awaiting the results of deliberation of the jury of the Prix Goncourt. While not officially related to the Prix Goncourt, it remains a complement to it: The Prix Renaudot laureate is announced at the same time and place as the Prix Goncourt, namely on the first Tuesday of November at the Drouant restaurant in Paris. The Renaudot jurors always pick an alternative laureate in case their first choice is awarded the Prix Goncourt. The prize is named after Théophraste Renaudot, who created the first French newspaper in 1631. In 2013, the Prix Redaudot ''essay'' revived the career of Gabriel Matzneff, which collapsed in 2020 as his pedophilia – long known and defended by his literary peers, including the Renaudot jurors – became more widely known through a report of one of his victims, Vanessa Springora. In the view of ''The New York Times'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Monde's 100 Books Of The Century
The 100 Books of the Century (french: Les cent livres du siècle) is a list of the one hundred most memorable books of the 20th century, according to a poll performed during the spring of 1999 by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper ''Le Monde''. Overview Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French participants responded to the question, "Which books have remained in your memory?" (''Quels livres sont restés dans votre mémoire?''). The list includes both classic novels and genre fiction (Tolkien, Agatha Christie, A. C. Doyle), as well as poetry, drama and nonfiction literature (Freud's essays and the diary of Anne Frank). There are also comic books on the list, one album from each of these five francophone or italian series: ''Asterix'', ''Tintin'', ''Blake and Mortimer'', ''Gaston'' and ''Corto Maltese''. The large number of French novels of the list is due to the demographics of the surveyed group. Likewise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1957 French Novels
1957 (Roman numerals, MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday, common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year of the 1950s decade. Events January * January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany. * January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch. * January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be Dismissal (cricket), dismissed for having ''handled the ball'', in Test cricket. * January 9 – British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns. * January 10 – Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. * January 11 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar. * January 14 – Kripalu Maharaj is named fifth Jagadguru (world teacher), after giving seven days of speeches before 500 Hindu scholars. * January 15 – The film ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Depictions Of Julian (emperor)
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. New York: J.P. Putnam's Son Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is counted a typica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychological Novels
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Fernald LD (2008)''Psychology: Six perspectives'' (pp.12–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. Ψ (''psi''), the first letter of the Greek word ''psyche'' from which the term psychology is derived (see below), is commonly associated with the science. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psych ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
