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The Keener's Manual
''The Keener's Manual'' is an imaginary book created by the 20th-century American political novelist Richard Condon. From it Condon used quotations or epigraphs, generally in verse, to either illustrate the theme of his novels, or, in a large number of cases, as the source of the title, in particular six of his first seven books: ''The Oldest Confession'', ''Some Angry Angel'', ''A Talent for Loving'', ''An Infinity of Mirrors'', and '' Any God Will Do''. Only his second, and most famous novel, ''The Manchurian Candidate ''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. The ...'', derived its title elsewhere. A number of his later books also reference it for epigraphs, without, however, using any of its verse as a source for titles. A "keen" is a "lamentation for the dead uttered in a lou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Condon
Richard Thomas Condon (March 18, 1915 – April 9, 1996) was an American political novelist. Though his works were satire, they were generally transformed into thrillers or semi-thrillers in other media, such as cinema. All 26 books were written in distinctive Condon style, which combined a fast pace, outrage, and frequent humor while focusing almost obsessively on monetary greed and political corruption. Condon himself once said: "Every book I've ever written has been about abuse of power. I feel very strongly about that. I'd like people to know how deeply their politicians wrong them." Condon's books were occasionally bestsellers, and a number of his books were made into films; he is primarily remembered for his 1959 ''The Manchurian Candidate'' and, many years later, a series of four novels about a family of New York gangsters named Prizzi. Condon's writing was known for its complex plotting, fascination with trivia, and loathing for those in power; at least two of his books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigraph (literature)
In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section thereof. The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context. A book may have an overall epigraphy that is part of the front matter, or one for each chapter. Examples * As the epigraph to '' The Sum of All Fears'', Tom Clancy quotes Winston Churchill in the context of thermonuclear war:Why, you may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together – what do you get? The sum of their fears. * The long quotation from Dante's ''Inferno'' that prefaces T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is part of a speech by one of the damned in Dante's Hell. * The epigraph to E. L. Doctorow's ''Ragtime'' quotes Scott Joplin' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Oldest Confession
''The Oldest Confession'' is a 1958 novel, the first of twenty-five by the American political novelist and satirist Richard Condon. It was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts. The novel is a tragicomedy about the attempted theft of a masterpiece from a museum in Spain. It can be classified as a caper story or caper novel, a subset of crime novels. The book deals with issues of money, greed, ethics and morality. It was adapted into a film retitled The Happy Thieves. The Title The title is inspired, as many of Condon's quotes, from The Keener's Manual, the fictional book he had also written. The epitaph to this first novel, which appears on the title page of the first American hardback edition, reads in its entirety:The Oldest Confession Is one of Need, Half the need Love, The other half Greed Characters Main Characters * James Bourne, an American in his middle 30s, is the protagonist and anti-hero of the book. He is created as a superficially likeable character: tall, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Some Angry Angel
''Some Angry Angel: A Mid-Century Faerie Tale'' was Richard Condon's third novel and gave impetus to the growing, though relatively short-lived "Condon cult" of that era. Published in 1960, it is written with all the panache, stylistic tricks, and mannerisms that characterize Condon's works. It was not, however, one of his more typical political thrillers, such as its immediate predecessor, the far better-known ''The Manchurian Candidate''. While Condon is remembered today for a number of more action-oriented books such as ''Candidate'', ''Winter Kills'', and the ''Prizzi'' series, ''Some Angry Angel'' is largely forgotten. Plot The story, which spans nearly 60 years, is that of a barely literate New York slum boy, Dan Tiamat, who first claws his way up through the newspaper ranks to become America's most famous and most powerful gossip columnist. The role is clearly modeled on the 1930s and 1940s Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Talent For Loving
''A Talent for Loving; or The Great Cowboy Race'' was the fourth novel by Richard Condon Richard Thomas Condon (March 18, 1915 – April 9, 1996) was an American political novelist. Though his works were satire, they were generally transformed into thrillers or semi-thrillers in other media, such as cinema. All 26 books were writte .... Published in 1961, it was one of the books that inspired a brief cult for his strenuously off-beat works. A subtitle does not appear on the cover of its first edition but is shown on an inner page. Plot In the 16th century an Aztec priest has cut off his own hand and used the bloody stump to lay a curse upon a blasphemous Spanish conquistador and all his direct descendants. The curse: that once any of the descendants, whether male or female, have tasted physical love, even in the form of a single kiss, they will spend the rest of their lives as being nearly sexually insatiable. Three centuries later the beautiful young virginal daughter of a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Infinity Of Mirrors
''An Infinity of Mirrors'' was the fifth and most ambitious book by the American satirist and political novelist Richard Condon. First published by Random House in 1964, it is set in France and Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, as seen through the eyes of a beautiful, rich Parisian Jew and her beloved husband, an old-fashioned Prussian army general. What unfolds is and an almost unrelievedly bleak depiction of the rise of the Nazis and the Third Reich . In spite of a few moments of typical Condonian gayness and insouciance, the overall tone of the book is of foreboding, incipient horror, and the impending doom of the Holocaust. After publishing four novels from 1958 through 1961, Condon was already widely known as the author of ''The Manchurian Candidate ''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Commun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Any God Will Do
''Any God Will Do'' is the sixth book by the American satirist and political novelist Richard Condon, first published by Random House in 1966. After the almost unmitigated grimness of his previous book, ''An Infinity of Mirrors'', it was a return to his more usual light-heartedness as displayed in works such ''A Talent for Loving''. Although its theme is madness, unusually for Condon it has little of the almost gratuitous scenes of violence and sudden deaths that punctuate most of his books. The only notable instance is that of a haughty French ''sommelier'' who shoots himself at an aristocratic dinner party when he discovers that an American guest is indeed correct in asserting a great white Burgundy can accompany young spring lamb. The story, which takes place from 1918 to 1922 in New York City, Switzerland, and London, is simple and straightforward by Condon's standards. Francis Vollmer, an orphan of unknown parentage, is raised by a wealthy New York banker and develops an ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Manchurian Candidate
''The Manchurian Candidate'' is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is a political thriller about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. The novel has twice been adapted into a feature film with the same title: the first was released in 1962 and the second in 2004. Plot summary Major Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are captured by an elite Soviet commando unit during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and brainwashed into believing Shaw saved their lives in combat – for which Shaw is subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor. Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering a recurring nightmare in which the seated platoon members are surrounded by a group of sweet little old ladies who had been a part of their brainwashing. One of the ladies tells S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Mid-Century Faerie Tale
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
