Nightwood

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Nightwood is not only a classic of lesbian literature, but was also acknowledged by no less than T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Eliot admired Djuna Barnes' rich, evocative language. Lesbian readers will admire the exquisite craftsmanship and Barnes' penetrating insights into obsessive passion. Barnes told a friend that Nightwood was written with her own blood "while it was still running." That flowing wound was the breakup of an eight-year relationship with the lesbian love of her life.

Book Description

The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece—one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era.

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" (TLS). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous.

The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction—there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person—a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature.

Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.

Customer Reviews:

Bizarre and over-rated. .......2007-10-01

This book's three main characters ("the doctor", Nora and Robin) did not hold my interest. This is the most bizarre thing I've read despite its vivid imagery and the doctor's often insightful observations. The story is one big whine about being captive to one's sexual/emotional nature and needs. Here are 2 lesbians and a transvestite fortunate enough to live in Paris, the capital of free thinking in the 1920's and a genial place that accepted people with these sensibilities. Yet, Nora and the doctor never feel comfortable with themselves. The character who did touch me is a secondary one, Felix (Baron Volkbein) who, despite fabricating an aristocratic lineage to raise others' regard for him, is capable of responding with compassion to someone who needs him just for who he is.

This novel has been used in academic studies of gender matters. But it could also serve as an aid in tracking the practice of perceiving oneself as a victim when one's personal choice creates a problem. In "Nightwood", the characters are very aware that their choices are their own and they accept responsibility for them. That is decades before people began blaming the consequences of their decisions on others, before the politicization and institutionalized endorsement of victimhood as a method of transferring responsibility for one's actions onto others.

My dissatisfaction with this book stems from its slack attention to time and place. At each page, I had to remind myself that the story is set in the 1920's and not the latter half of the 1800's as I instinctively felt. Archaic phrases rich with signs of an earlier period combined with an absence of any 20th century flavour has produced characters who float in from the past and seem therefore devoid of physical mass. Similarly, Paris, the story's primary location, is reduced to an icon of itself like a backdrop assembled in haste for a play. Mentions of "rue du Cherche-Midi" and "Hotel Recamier" sound promising but lead only to the next bout of the doctor's enrapturing but ultimately meaningless rants. The best I can think about this neglect is that the author may have been demonstrating how self-obsession robs its holder of the capacity to interact with his environment beyond the narrow confines of its demands. No one seems affected by where they are. In the end, this is about people who experience love as torture and a direct route to hell.

Very Disappointing.......2005-11-18

I had such high hopes going in, what with Eliot's singing praises and all sorts of reputable people claiming this book to be a lost Modernist gem, but they were dashed by actually trying to read the work. Grueling is perhaps the best word that can be used to describe the feeling that overwhelms the reader attempting to tackle this book. This quickly fades to annoyance with the realization that it is all for naught. Contrary to what Eliot says in relation to its poetic qualities, her writing is messy and unfulfilling. And the content? It was often very hard to discern what it even was(which, for me, is not an automatic strike against a book) and, even worse, was very, very dated. However, there were some moments when, as another reviewer has noted, Barnes will have a single sentence or phrase that makes one's heart skip a beat, but these are few and far between. And, as one last note, before actually reading this book, I disregarded many of its negative reviews as being indicative of laziness or incompetence on the other reviewers' parts in relation to my superior reading skills, but now, I must abashedly say, that this is just not a very good book.

The Night Is A Hunter .......2003-03-25

Djuna Barnes' short modernist novel Nightwood (1936) is one of the genuine odd ducks of 20th century literature. Written in an uneven, semi - comic, and baroque style, the book is more likely to impress young readers rather than older and more experienced individuals who have lost their appetite for decadent romantic entanglements. Nightwood is certainly an original work, and Barnes' vision of the factors shaping human destiny - especially time, heritage, and evolution - are uniquely expressed. But despite its fluidity of language, many of Barnes' seemingly brilliant observations concerning life, consciousness, and human suffering are more specious than acute, which is important, since Barnes' emotionally marooned cast is badly in need of answers, wisdom, and salvation.

Hiding under the text's antique lathering is a sparse, skeletal plot, one top heavy with philosophical speculations but reflecting little grasp of basic psychological truths about human nature. Nora Flood meets and falls destructively in love with passive - aggressive Robin Vote, a strange, corpse - eyed, and inexplicably charismatic woman who, despite marriage and motherhood, is spiritually, psychologically, and emotionally adrift in the world. When their affair evolves into a love triangle, Nora turns increasingly for advice to charlatan doctor and Greek chorus Matthew O'Connor, a poverty - stricken alcoholic who is pleasurably inclined towards homosexuality, transvestitism, and self - demoralization ("I'm a lady in no need of insults," "I was born as ugly as God dare premeditate"). Significantly, all of the book's characters are in some way stunted, crippled, or pathologically predisposed.

Barnes excels at dramatizing the failure of romantic love, especially the kind that displays active neurotic factors, elements of codependence, and spontaneous psychological transference. Those pages which detail Nora's isolation and sad obsession with her abandoning lover are deeply felt, haunting, and moving indeed.

In "The Squatter," Barnes spends an entire chapter fulfilling a personal vendetta by brilliantly depicting widow Jenny Petherbridge's status as a rapacious black hole and non - entity. Jenny is ugly ("she had a beaked head and the body, small, feeble, and ferocious, that somehow made one associate her with Judy," "only severed could any part of her been called "right"), stupid ("when anyone was witty about a contemporary event, she would look perplexed and a little dismayed"), incapable of establishing her own values ("Someone else's wedding ring was on her finger...the books in her library were other people's selections...her walls, her cupboards, her bureaux, were teeming with second - hand dealings with life...the words that fell from her mouth seemed to have been lent to her"), spiritually empty but power hungry ("she wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing"), and lacks poise, maturity, and dignity ("being one of those panicky little women, who, no matter what they put on, look like a child under penance," or, as O'Connor calls her, "a decaying comedy jester, the face on a fool's - stick, and with the smell about her of mouse - nests"). Barnes makes an excellent case for the argument that it is not the powerful that are to be feared, but the weak, frustrated, and incapable.

Robin the "somnambulist" is also lengthily described, largely via the use of symbols and metaphors: throughout the text, the boyish, bird - named Robin is described in animal, vegetable, and mineral terms. When first encountered, Robin, who is later recognized as a kindred spirit by a wild circus animal and a ferocious dog, is found lying unconscious in a small apartment crowded with a superabundance of plant life. Barnes describes Robin's abode as "a jungle trapped in a drawing room" and Robin as the "ration of the carnivorous flowers."

The flamboyant, limp - wristed ("his hands...he always carried like a dog who is walking on his hind legs"), dirty - kneed, rhetoric - spewing Dr. Matthew O'Connor, the book's most famous character, is a figure of high camp whom today's readers are more likely to find mildly distasteful rather than shocking. O'Connor is given an entire long chapter in which to pontificate ("Watchman, What Of The Night?"), though the chapter reflects badly on the wounded Nora, whose continuous exclamations of "But what am I to do?" and "What will become of her?" and "How will I stand it?" reduce her from the genuinely tormented human being of earlier chapters to a one - dimensional cartoon damsel in distress.

Intelligent, perceptive readers are likely to find one passage in every five that sounds profound and poetically illuminating like the others, but means absolutely nothing on careful examination (for example: "Your body is coming to it, your are forty and the body has a politic too, and a life of its own that you like to think is yours. I heard a spirit new once, but I knew it was a mystery eternally moving outward and on, and not my own.") Despite Barnes' often incredible use of language, the ultimate effect of Nightwood is one of shallowness, slickness, and almost hysterical distance from its own primary sources. When compared to other literary books written by women also primarily focused on women, such as the five novels of Jean Rhys or Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat, Nightwood seems sketchy, brittle, and, as one critic said about Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales, seemingly more concerned with mystification than with genuine mystery. Though bold and intrepid as a beautiful young big city journalist, and later as an expatriate modernist writer living among the Parisian glitterati, Barnes closed the door on the rest of the world in very early middle age, and became a notorious New York City recluse known primarily for bitterness and explosive outbursts of anger. Readers of Nightwood, with its essential focus on theoretical, airy philosophy rather than psychological home truths, may find clues as to how Barnes's life went sorrowfully wrong.

An elegant classic.......2003-03-22

There are few books that can be safely called classics--and out of those, fewer are as deserving of the term as Djuna Barnes' 'Nightwood'. Elegant and mesmerizing, difficult and beautiful, it is a measured and balanced work of art.

Another reviewer said this wasn't a 'celebration of lesbian love'--this much is true. What makes this book truly remarkable is that it *doesn't* set any boundaries--hearts are fickle, hearts are cruel, and every character in the novel is inflicted with his/her own brand of emotional anxiety. Barnes makes no distinction between 'lesbian' love and any other--it is as normal, and as abnormal, as any other human affection. That alone makes this book a classic (but of course, the writing too is intoxicating). In fact, what is truly surprising (to me, at least!) is that despite her exquisite elegance, Djuna Barnes manages to take such a no-nonsense approach to human emotions. She never seeks to simplify anything--and makes her work difficult for the reader in the most rewarding of ways. (I mean that she doesn't let us get away with pre-conceptions or romantic illusions. She manages to make the imperfect reality as arresting as the myth of perfection.) Most of us, in our lives, don't *really* know what we're doing, or what we feel. Barnes makes her characters real by putting them through the same confusing maelstrom of experiences--where one emotion often morphs into another--love into indifference, respect into insecurity, and so on. There are no answers--there is only endurance--endurance of others, endurance of ourselves.

I don't want to be more specific and give out details of the plot. This book has to be experienced to be believed...

baroque splendor.......2003-01-06

barnes' prose is some of the most voluptuous language that one can find. indeed, it is bach as word. and her characters' minds are luxriously deep, and as fascinatingly convulted as those of the macbeths. few have written so convincingly and precisely about the complexity of human intimacy. she, like all great minds, recognizes that intimacy is always and ever the final frontier (this includes the campaign for intimacy with self). and o'connor's thought on the protestant imagination rivals that of any philosopher of the modern religious noodle.

this novel defines the terrain of the modern intellectual epidermis; it tickles the very pores of nuance, imploring them to dilate more widely. in it one not only meets with supple minds, one gets to see them thinking. the fugue of the post-kierkegaardian soul never sounded so like elizabethan pop. barnes' glorious, incisive mind weds donne with henry james.

Customer Reviews:

Connections.......2001-03-28

A young woman is found murdered outside a lesbian bar, and Kate Delafield is on the case. The young woman was a prostitute and a junkie who was rejected by her judgmental parents, all of which gives Kate a plethora of suspects. During the investigation, Kate has a brief liaison with a woman from the lesbian bar, and ultimately reconnects with the lesbian community, which she hadn't done for years. And when Kate discovers who killed the young woman, it's a jolt to the reader as well, even if, like myself, you suspected it. Forrest is a gifted writer, showing in her second Delafield mystery the reasons why she has such a devoted following.

Great book..........2000-09-05

This was the first in the Delafield series that I read and I've been an addict ever since. This book, along with Beverly Malibu, is one of the best in the series and an excellent read. Great story of how lesbians react to their own who wear badges, and how those women officers deal with it.

PERFECT!.......2000-06-21

This book is perfect to me. Every actor seems to be alive. And if you know L.A., you know the Nightwood Bar and every place in this book.

Excellent Book!.......2000-04-02

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The character development was well thought out, the plot was superiour, and the entire book held my attention from beginning to end! It's also nice to see a lesbian main character go through "real life".

Selected works: Spillway; The antiphon; Nightwood

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Selected works: Spillway; The antiphon; Nightwood
Djuna Barnes
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts

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A first and great incite into a mystery concerning manuscrip

Nightwood: The Original Version and Related Drafts
Djuna Barnes
Manufacturer: Dalkey Archive Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1564780805

Book Description

NIGHTWOOD before TS Eliot's & Emily Coleman's cuts

Customer Reviews:

A first and great incite into a mystery concerning manuscrip.......1998-09-04

It was thought for many years that there was another manuscript, or that there were more pieces to this book than the slim version which became a prose masterpiece included in the canon of American Lit 1900 to 1940. Because of the editing and work by Eliot etal, and because of Barne's reclusiveness, wse didn't know much about this manuscript. Thus Cheryl Plumb's work helps us understand more about the process of this book, it's starts and stops, it's magic and mystery. A must for Djuna Barnes fans

Nightwood ; Ladies almanack (Triangle classics)

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Nightwood ; Ladies almanack (Triangle classics)
Djuna Barnes
Manufacturer: Quality Paperback Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Product Description

Two books in one by lesbian-interest author Djuna Barnes: Nightwood, first published in 1937; and Ladies Almanack, first published in 1928.

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Projected romance turns out to be a struggle for survival when murder steps in...

Nightwood
Patricia Windsor
Manufacturer: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385733127
Release Date: 2006-09-12

Book Description

Casey, Gena, and Maryann can think of a way better use of a week than a senior trip to Washington, D.C. Casey's plan is simple. Ditch the trip to D.C., camp out at her parents' amazing cabin in Delonga, and accidentally "run into" Lane and his friends on their fishing trip. She knows the boys will be across the lake--her friends will thank her once they're up there.
Three girls for three boys will be the perfect party. After all, what could be more fun than five days in the woods? No curfews, no rules, and no parents. No one will even know they're up there.
And no one will hear them when they scream for help.
When the first body shows up, it's shocking. When the knock comes on the back door, it's horrifying. And when they realize there's nowhere to hide, they'll wish they were already dead.
Surviving a week in the woods is a going to be a whole lot harder than these girls could ever imagine.

Customer Reviews:

Projected romance turns out to be a struggle for survival when murder steps in..........2007-08-07

Patricia Windsor's NIGHTWOOD tells of three friends who ditch a senior class trip to Washington, D.C. to camp out in a cabin and hopefully run into some boys on their fishing trip. Only trouble is, the projected romance turns out to be a struggle for survival when murder steps in...

Murder at the Nightwood Bar: A Kate Delafield Mystery

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Murder at the Nightwood Bar: A Kate Delafield Mystery
Katherine V. Forrest
Manufacturer: Alyson Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1555837174

Book Description

When Katherine V. Forrest's Amateur City was published in 1984, introducing LAPD detective Kate Delafield, it not only marked the beginning of one of mystery fiction's most successful series, it also created one of the most lucrative genres in gay publishing: the lesbian mystery. With her next six Kate Delafield novels, Forrest's complex and determined lesbian detective became the most celebrated figure in lesbian fiction. Alyson is proud to present the first and second Kate Delafield mysteries, back in print and ready to captivate a new generation of fans!

In Murder at the Nightwood Bar, Kate investigates the murder of a homeless 19-year-old addict-prostitute, whose battered body is found outside a popular lesbian bar.

In addition to penning the legendary Kate Delafield mystery series, -Katherine V. Forrest has written the lesbian romantic classic Curious Wine and the science fiction novels Daughters of a Coral Dawn and Daughters of an Amber Noon. She lives in San Francisco.

Amateur City / Murder At The Nightwood Bar / The Beverly Malibu

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Amateur City / Murder At The Nightwood Bar / The Beverly Malibu
Katherine V. Forrest
Manufacturer: Quality Paperback
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JPIJDG

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AMATEUR CITY; MURDER AT THE NIGHTWOOD BAR; THE BEVERLY MALIBU
Katherine V. Forrest
Manufacturer: Quality Paperback Book Club
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LC1PY2

Hearts of Darkness: White Women Write Race

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Fantastic

Hearts of Darkness: White Women Write Race
Jane Marcus
Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 081352962X

Book Description

In this book, one of modernism's most insightful critics, Jane Marcus, examines the writings of novelists such as Virginia Woolf, Nancy Cunard, Mulk Raj Anand, and Djuna Barnes—artists whose work coincided with the end of empire and the rise of fascism before the Second World War. All these writers delved into the "dark hearts" of imperialism and totalitarianism, thus tackling some of the most complex cultural issues of the day. Marcus investigates previously unrecognized ways in which social and political tensions are embodied by their works.

The centerpiece of the book is Marcus's dialogue with one of her best-known essays, "Britannia Rules The Waves." In that piece, she argues that The Waves makes a strong anti-imperialist statement. Although many already support that argument, she now goes further in order to question the moral value of such a buried critique on Woolf's part. In "A Very Fine Negress" she analyzes the painful subject of Virginia Woolf's racism in A Room of One's Own. Other chapters traverse the connected issues of modernism, race, and imperialism. In two of them, we follow Nancy Cunard through the making of the Negro anthology and her appearance in a popular novel of the freewheeling Jazz Age. Elsewhere, Marcus delivers a complex analysis of A Passage to India, in a reading that interrogates E. M. Forster's displacement of his fear of white Englishwomen struggling for the vote.

Marcus, as always, brings considerable gifts as both researcher and writer to this collection of new and reprinted essays, a combination resulting in a powerful interpretation of many of modernism's most cherished figures.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic.......2005-05-04

This book is insightful and brave. I just finished writing my MA English thesis on the interactions of modernism, race, and gender in the work of Mina Loy. I don't know what I would have done without Marcus' book. It dares to look at white women in modernism and what some of their gendered motives were in approaching race. (The chapter on Virginia Woolf's line in A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN is absolutely fantastic.) Although Marcus focuses on only a few writers her work holds great promise and opens the door for looks into other authors (in my case, that was Loy). In the tradition of PLAYING IN THE DARK, it really complicates how we think about modernism, race, and gender.

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