The Baroque Narrative of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora: A New World Paradise (Cambridge Studies in Latin American and Iberian Literature)

Book Description

Carlos de SigÜenza y Góngora, one of seventeenth-century Mexico's best-known intellectuals, was a writer of fascinating and complex narratives that exemplarize the heterogeneous nature of colonial Spanish American prose. This book is the first critical study to place both the writer and his narrative within the phenomenon of the Barroco de Indias, or the Spanish-American baroque. Approaching SigÜenza as a criollo historian preoccupied with the placement of the New World within a universal context, Professor Ross develops a theoretical framework within which his texts can be read and understood today. Professor Ross incorporates into her examination new critical trends, such as the use of narrative theory, the new historiography, and feminist criticism.

The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth-Century Fiction

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Excellent Book

The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth-Century Fiction
Rosemary Marangoly George
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Book Description

Twentieth-century imperial and postcolonial narratives in English have a major investment in the notion of "home." At the same time, the concept of "global English" challenges the traditional boundaries of national literatures. Through inter-related readings of the work of "first-world" and "third-world" writers and theorists, including Joseph Conrad, Kazuo Ishiguro, Anita Desai, Edward Said and Homi Bhabha, the author explores the problems, pleasures and privileges involved in "feeling at home" in literature.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Book.......2006-11-16

I loved this book ... couldn't put it down until the last page was over ! When's the next one coming??

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AMAZINGLY well written.
Stunned by Conn's acrimony
An Excellent Portrayal of an Extraordinary Woman
Incredible story - highly recommended
Pearl Buck was magnificent; Peter Conn's book is NOT.

Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography
Peter Conn
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521560802

Amazon.com

Quick: name the only two female American novelists ever to win the Nobel Prize. Most literati can get Toni Morrison; many fewer remember that Pearl Buck won the world's most prestigious literary prize in 1938, largely on the strength of her celebrated first book, The Good Earth. Peter Conn's painstaking biography explores Buck, the famous author, crusader for women's rights, philanthropist, adviser to Presidents, expert on the Far East, and editor of Asia magazine. Pearl Buck, the woman, wife, and mother is a bit more difficult to discern. Even her most intimate relations, including her children, seemed to find her a distant figure. Pearl Buck is overdue for a critical reappraisal in the United States--perhaps this book will help launch it.

Book Description

Pearl S. Buck was one of the most renowned, interesting, and controversial figures ever to influence American and Chinese cultural and literary history--and yet she remains one of the least studied, honored, or remembered. In this richly illustrated and meticulously crafted narrative, Conn recounts Buck's life in absorbing detail, tracing the parallel course of American and Chinese history. This "cultural biography" thus offers a dual portrait: of Buck, a figure greater than history cares to remember, and of the era she helped to shape.

Customer Reviews:

AMAZINGLY well written........2007-07-22

If you like biographies and are a sophisticated reader, this book is spot on. Every sentance was a work of art. As a woman writer - the story of Pearl Buck was particularly fascinating and inspiring.

Stunned by Conn's acrimony.......2005-07-08

I've just finished reading this compelling biography about one of my favorite authors. I can't it rank five stars, even though I'd like to, because I'm STUNNED by Conn's acrimonious protrayal of Christianity and Protestant missionaries in China. He's totally accepted Pearl's often limited and onesided perceptions, and then gone even further off track. Of course, what both of them say is true to a minute degree, but there's so very much more to the whole picture that they omit. I feel qualified to make this observation since I'm writing a trilogy of novels inspired by my family's century of close ties with China. The first book, based on my grandparents who moved to China in 1892, is entitled Hungry River: A Yangtze Novel, which is now available on Amazon. My father was born in China in 1904, as was I in 1942. I have a son born in Taiwan in 1968. My family rejoices in our international Christian heritage, which joins that of thousands of Chinese. I wonder if Conn is aware that today there may be as many as 80 million Christians in China in spite of decades of horrific persecution? That one statistic alone should be enough to balance his frighteningly negative analysis. In conclusion, I do agree with Conn's evaluation of the place Pearl's writings should have in American and world literature. I hope his biography will help her once more achieve her rightful literary stature. At the same time, I do regret deeply his evaluation does not bring fair balance to her extreme views of Christianity and Protestant missionaries among the Chinese in China. I hope he reads Hungry River!

An Excellent Portrayal of an Extraordinary Woman.......2001-09-05

Peter Conn's sweeping biography of Pearl Buck is as fascinating and provocative as Ms. Buck herself. I have been an admirer of Buck's writing for years, however I never knew the true depth of her character and achievements until I read Conn's book. Not only was the Nobel Prize winner an excellent writer and champion of Chinese causes, but she was a staunch supporter of civil and women's rights, a tireless fundraiser, and an advocate for inter-racial/international adoption. She was a fearless and often controversial speaker on behalf of the under-represented and oppressed, and made a great impact on public opinion towards racial and gender equality. Conn covers all of these diverse aspects of Pearl Buck beautifully. His book is very well researched, well organized, and well written. He presents all sides of his subject - good and bad - in an unflinching and intelligent manner. He discusses the circumstances under which Buck wrote her greatest books, her first 40 years in China, and her experiences as a prominent global literary figure. I couldn't put the book down - it was wonderful to discover that the writer whose books I have cherished for so many years had lead such a compelling and multi-faceted life. There is much more to Pearl Buck than even her impressive body of literary work suggests - and Peter Conn has done a tremendous job of revealing the many sides of this remarkable woman.

Incredible story - highly recommended.......2001-05-23

I think that Peter Conn's book is an incredible achievement. It is apparent that he has taken great pains to sort through a massive quantity of letters, published writings, and FBI files about the writer and humanitarian Pearl Buck.

Thankfully, this is NOT the sort of dirty-laundry biography, so popular now, which serves only to tear down its subject. Conn is factual and honest to the memory of a great woman, who accomplished much in her lifetime.

The book follows Pearl Buck from her missionary origin through her unexpected literary success, into her high-profile career as a spokesperson for Chinese/Eastern issues and the founding of the Welcome House (an adoption agency) and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation.

This biography inspired me to read through more Buck's novels. She was so prolific! I strongly recommend _Good Earth_ and _Sons_, as well as _Kinfolk_, and especially _The Mother_.

Conn's biography points out the factors that have led to her omission from the literary canon. Primarily, she was writing about the experience of women during a time when women's issues were dismissed as frivolous and un-literary. Also, she worked at such a great pace, that her writing is uneven, and not all of it of the great quality that earned her the Nobel prize.

I think that Peter Conn's book will remain a splendid resource about Pearl S. Buck for years to come! Good reading!

Pearl Buck was magnificent; Peter Conn's book is NOT........2001-02-11

This book, although entitled, "Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography," only skims over her life in the barest manner. There is very little of her life in this tiresome book. She was a remarkable woman with much talent; the author takes great license in criticizing her work. I wanted to learn about her - not what the author thinks of her writing. If I hadn't been such a fan of hers, I would have tossed this book after the first hundred pages.

A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau (Historical Guides to American Authors)

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A Historical Guide to Henry David Thoreau (Historical Guides to American Authors)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0195138635

Book Description

As an essayist, philosopher, ex-pencil manufacturer, notorious hermit, tax protester, and all-around original thinker, Thoreau led so singular a life that he is in some ways a perfect candidate for the historical and biographical treatments made possible by the Historical Guides to American Authors series format. William E. Cain, the volume editor, includes contributions on his relationship with 19th century authority and concepts of the land, which should help the volume's reach beyond those who read Thoreau for illumination to those general readers who love him for embodying the spirit of American rebellion.

Modern Irish Autobiography: Self, Nation and Society

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Modern Irish Autobiography: Self, Nation and Society

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Irish | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1403912688
Release Date: 2007-06-26

Book Description

Modern Irish Autobiography provides the first comprehensive overview of the Irish autobiographical tradition as it has received expression in both Irish and English from the nineteenth-century to the present day. Featuring original essays by leading Irish, British and American critics, the book combines historically grounded analyses of key trends and themes with theoretically informed readings of canonical and non-canonical texts. Focusing mainly on written autobiography, the volume locates Ireland's autobiographers in their historical, literary and ideological contexts and surveys the rich diversity of their achievement.

The American Abraham: James Fenimore Cooper and the Frontier Patriarch (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)

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The American Abraham: James Fenimore Cooper and the Frontier Patriarch (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)
Warren Motley
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

In this book Warren Motley offers an original interpretation of James Fenimore Cooper’s career. Whereas most studies of Cooper have centered on the figure of the Leatherstocking - that solitary model of the self-sufficient American hero untrammeled by civilization - this book examines Cooper’s interest in the pioneer patriarchs who built new societies in the wilderness. Throughout his career Cooper explored an essential American problem: how to achieve the right balance between freedom and authority. He did this by retelling the story of the frontier settlement and thereby assessing its successes and failures. Like other writers in the decades before the Civil War, Cooper struggled with the legacy of the Revolutionary fathers - a legacy made more personal in Cooper’s case by his father’s role as a frontier land developer, judge, and Federalist politician. This book breaks new ground by relating Cooper’s artistic development, and his ideas about authority in society, to his efforts to become independent of his father. Motley traces Cooper’s preoccupation with authority from his youthful letters, through the troubled decade that preceded his decision to be a writer, and on to his studies of American history at its different stages in such books as The Wept of Wisb-Ton-Wish, Satanstoe, The Pioneers, The Prairie, and The Crater. By making his fiction into a series of imaginative negotiations with authority, Cooper offered a radical re-presentation of American history and frontier settlement. This view acknowledged the achievement of the nation’s founders while at the same time expressing Cooper’s independent vision and establishing him in the role of a founder as the nation’s first major novelist. In Cooper’s fiction, the future of American society ultimately rests not with the Leatherstocking and his fictional progeny but with the American Abraham.

A World of Difference: An Inter-Cultural Study of Toni Morrison's Novels (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies)

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A World of Difference: An Inter-Cultural Study of Toni Morrison's Novels (Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies)
Wendy Harding , and Jacky Martin
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Throughout her novels, Toni Morrison explores the complex interaction of race, class, culture, and gender. This study takes into account both Western and Black traditions to show how Morrison not only denounces the constricting patterns of the dominant culture, but also, through the reversal or subversion of Western stereotypes, harnesses the rich potential for the significance they contain. While most recent studies of Morrison examine individual works separately, this book concentrates on particular dimensions of Morrison's fiction and explores the continuities and developments from her first to most recent novel. And while other studies generally approach Morrison from a particular critical perspective, this book instead considers the interaction of multiple determinants such as race and gender, and gives special attention to the pressure exerted by dominant cultural forms. The authors demonstrate how in contradiction to the dominant culture's ideology of unity and homogeneity, Morrison makes a case for the value of difference in a diverse society.

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This book will stay with you for a long time after you read it.
Why did I like this book?
What?
over the top start, hard to believe middle, cliched close
strong thriller

The Society of Others: A Novel
William Nicholson
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1400078210
Release Date: 2006-01-03

Book Description

Cool, clear-eyed, and bluntly cynical, the young narrator of The Society of Others embarks on a journey without a destination. He hitchhikes through Europe only to find himself in a mystifying country where terrorists are inexplicably after him, and so is a sinister government.

In a surreal landscape where people are shot to death without reason and social control runs deep, he must learn who to trust–and what to stand for. Fast paced and provocative, a gripping philosophical thriller, The Society of Others is an ingenious meditation on the nature of contemporary innocence and identity.

Customer Reviews:

This book will stay with you for a long time after you read it........2005-07-02

Im not going to pretend that I read a lot because I dont, every once and a while Im browsing in a book store and something calls out to me READ ME. This is what the Society Of Others did to me. I dont want to tell you much about the book, I want to surprise you. The end will either shock you or go over your head. Its a book that you will have to read in between the lines. If you want a laid out obvious plot then read Tom Clancy but if you like books to effect you then read this. Its a heart racing hypnotic book of wisdom

Why did I like this book?.......2005-03-19

No need to worry that I might give away the ending. I can't figure out what happened.

The story is too loose to be literal, too realistic to be allegorical, and too arrhythmic to be poetry.

What if Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Tom Clancy decided to write a movie together - then they changed their minds and published it as a novel.

Yes. It has some problems. But at least it has interesting problems.

That's why I enjoyed it. This is proof that a book doesn't have to be well plotted to be fun. It broke some of the more formulaic story-writing conventions, it explored a setting that you seldom see in novels, and it had an engaging philosophical angle. Most important of all it was fast-paced and short.

For all the flaws, it was entertaining and challenging. The story and the philosophies will stick with me.

If you find that after reading this book the subject matter, setting, style, and characters leave you wanting more (and better), try to find a copy of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

What?.......2005-03-17

This book is engagingly written and contains some delightful set pieces. But I'm underwhelmed. It's difficult to shake the impression that the author lost interest in the project about two thirds of the way through. The narrator's character is deftly established at the outset, but his passivity and memory lapses quickly become irksome, and his later mental development is not altogether convincing. The last few chapters degenerate into an uninformative muddle through which one can hear the author faintly screaming, "I want to stop writing this book RIGHT NOW!" On the other hand, it's a quick read and worth dipping a toe into.

over the top start, hard to believe middle, cliched close.......2005-02-27

One feels silly writing such a poor review on the work of someone with a resume like Nicholson, but it's hard to find much positive to say about the Society of Others, the first adult novel written by someone known for his screenplays, stage plays, and young adult. Though perhaps that's the problem, for Society reads very much like a screenplay or young adult novel, despite being otherwise intended.
The book's unnamed protagonist is a sullen, cynical young man, recently graduated from college who sits in his room all day and tries to ignore the world, whether it come in the form of his family, his girlfriend, or his economic future. The first quarter of the book introduces the character, puts him through his "world-weary" paces, and then has him use the thousand pounds gift from his writer father to "get away from it all" by hitching a ride with a trucker to an unknown destination.
The problems begin almost immediately. Though he is supposed to have graduated from college, in his speech, his sullen tone, and his cliched version of cynicism, the narrator sounds much more like a 13 year old boy brooding in his room than a 21 or 22-yr-old. His character is way over the top and while he occasionally hits some perceptive notes, they're surrounded by so much cliched and over-the-top noise that the few good notes get drowned out. And none of the dialogue in this section, mostly between the narrator and his family or his girlfriend, sounds like authentic speech. One can argue that Society has a "fable" feel to it, so perhaps it isn't intended to, but the thing about most fables is they're short; it's hard to pull off the style and tone over long periods of time--it just gets too wearying on the reader. In either case, the first 40-50 pages are a struggle to get through. The trucker whose hobby is philosophy and manages to sum up then skewer most philosophers in a single conversation can be seen as part of the fable mode or as highly contrived; in either case it didn't work for me.
The middle section of the book picks up when the trucker is let into a country that has the look and feel of the old Eastern Europe police states. Turns out the trucker is smuggling copies of an illegal book into the country. When he is discovered and violence occurs, the narrator manages to escape, left on his own in an unfamiliar, unknown country whose language he does not speak. The narrator then hooks up with a violent resistance movement, a non-violent poetry-loving resistance, a simple peasant couple trying to get by while caught between the state police and the terrorists, the state police, an absurdist television talk show host, a strange cello-playing monk with a secret identity, and a man in a grey Mercedes whom the narrator is sure has been hunting him. While the pace and sense of tension, suspense all pick up in this section, it's marred by some hard-to-believe scenes, some triteness (the peasant couple for instance), and the sense that the characters we meet are just props rather than characters. Again, one has the sense of fable here with the simplistic viewpoints, the shallow characters, the sense-of-disbelief, but it's far too extended and just doesn't seem to work.
The end focuses on his attempts to disentangle himself from the politics he's become enmeshed in and to escape the country, as he realizes that all his earlier cynicism was horribly wrong: his country, his family, his life wasn't so bad; his family loved him and he didn't do enough to return that love; life is for living; and other nice but trite sentiments. The end itself returns to fable form.
The whole book reads much more like a young adult novel (not a particularly good one) in its simplicity and obviousness of message and its mostly shallow characterization. The speedy shifts from scene to scene with little description and the changes in character that are propelled by external events (sometimes too contrived) and occur far too quickly make it feel like a screenplay. The side characters as props, the lack of names for the main character or main setting, the simplistic notions, and the close make it read like a fable, but one that should have been at most a novella, at best a long short story, rather than a 200 page book. In short, while it had a few good moments- a few times when the narrator sounded like an original, modern Holden; a few incisive comments on people or society-they were far too few and far between. Not recommended.

strong thriller .......2005-01-26

He recently graduated college, but has no goals and speculates that life is meaningless. Why bother? However, tired of parental nagging, he decides on a coming of age grand adventure on the continent. He hitches a ride from the English side of the Chunnel with a philosophical truck driver on a three day trek across Europe.

However, once they leave the land of the Euro into the heavily guarded East, thugs using a roadblock stop the truck, torture and kill the trucker, but his passenger escapes. They burn the books inside the truck, but the hitchhiker rescues one along with an envelope that the driver gave him. The hiker reaches a nearby town where he meets Petra, who informs him that the burned books were targeted to go to those names listed in the envelop. He joins Petra's revolutionary band, but when her group torture the enemy at another roadblock, he flees into the woods in despair. By himself he ponders the meaning of life.

The first half of this novel is a great coming of age tales as the unnamed narrator (apropos label for the disenchanted) finds his grand tour turn into a nightmare. Nameless struggles with both sides in the dispute who use any means to achieve their end. Once he flees from Petra, the story line turns much more introspective as the lead character begins to analyze his relationships especially with his parents even while he dodges the police and to a lesser degree the revolutionaries. This is a strong thriller worth reading due to the despairing antihero but the latter half though superbly well written cannot match the incredible levels of excitement and suspense of the first part.

Harriet Klausner

Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860

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Decisive 4 19th Century American Literary Studies & History
How is a "Classic Text" Made?

Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860
Jane Tompkins
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195041194

Book Description

In this provocative book, Jane Tompkins seeks to move the study of literature away from the small group of critically approved texts that have dominated literary discussion over the decades, to allow inclusion of texts ignored or denigrated by the literary academy. Sensational Designs challenges comfortable assumptions about what makes a literary work a "classic."

Customer Reviews:

Decisive 4 19th Century American Literary Studies & History.......2005-01-07

Jane Tompkins' Sensational Design has had a revolutionary impact on the study and our understanding of "literature" and is also important to our understanding of 19th Century literature and women's studies as well. It is also nicely put together, clear, incisive, and provides the joy that comes from reading a book that explains things right that have been either explained wrong forever, or never explained before.

Literature and canon are artifical categories constructed after the fact usually under the impact of political, sexual, and social dominance, not necessarily literary achievement, whatever that is, and not at all readership. Tompkins explodes the idea of the American Literary Renaissance by pointing out that Sentimental Women Writers like Susan Warner and Harriet Beecher Stowe were selling hundreds of thousands of copies of their books, while Hawthrone never sold more than a few thousand coies of anything. Even with Hawthrone she explains how the different attitudes of readership and thought made the Marble Faun, a work much neglected and unread, be considered as his most important work in his time. She also does mention how history might not have been as kind to Hawthrone's place in literature had he not married his children into families that controled the Atlantic Monthly and what would become the Harvard Literature department.

More importantly, Tompkins unravels the mechanisms of the Sentimental novel such as Warner's The Wide Wide World and Stowe's immortal Uncle Tom. Tompkins explains how the text's purpose was the create "sympathy" seen in the physical form of tears, and how much of their approach corresponded with the notions of reality comment among its readership.
This work belongs on the shelf of anyone who seeks a serious knowledge of American literature and of 19th Century Culture. Moreover, the insights she provides on Uncle Tom make this book a must for people interested in the storm of literary discourse the book provoked among African American writers on one side and pro-slavery writers on the other.

How is a "Classic Text" Made?.......2000-09-07

This is one of the books that started the new-historical feminist reinterpretation of books that suffer as "bestsellers" and "pulp" (often women's literature) as history (and a group of "insiders") decide what books go on to become "classics" and which do not. Tompkins reveals the historical and socio-political factors that affected Nathaniel Hawthorne's "classic" status and shows us why other authors, including Harriet Beecher Stowe and Susan Warner, slipped into relative obscurity and/or disfavor following their popularity during their lifetimes. She does not dispute the richness of Hawthorne's writing, rather points out that the "canon" changes over time, and the books that fall in or out are subject to individual and political pressures. For anyone who ever wondered "why aren't there more books by "women/minorities/--- fill in blank" in the canon, this book is AN explanation. Maybe not the only one-- but a good explanation in very accessible language.

Dickens And Empire: Discourses Of Class, Race And Colonialism In The Works Of Charles Dickens (Nineteenth Century)

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Dickens And Empire: Discourses Of Class, Race And Colonialism In The Works Of Charles Dickens (Nineteenth Century)
Grace Moore
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0754634124

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