Mademoiselle O

Volete scrivere un romanzo? Prima leggete questo. Prima di iniziare a leggere quanto segue, dimenticatevi per un attimo quante stelline ho dato a questo libro. A prescindere dal fatto che possa essermi piaciuto o meno, è importante che vi renda edotti innanzitutto sulla sua funzione. Per non farvela t Leggi tutto

It's great to see someone addressing themselves at this kind of length to literary theory – although this is not really a book of ‘Theory’, but rather a long working-out of the author's feelings about style, what it is, and how well it can be translated. Thirlwell's survey takes in a fairly standard Leggi tutto

Miss Herbert: A book of novels, romances and their translators, containing ten languages, set on four continents and accompanied by maps, portraits, squiggles and illustrations —titled The Delighted States in the United States—is a digressive meditation on literary style, translation and avant-garde Leggi tutto

I liked this book so much that I'm reading it again. Thirlwell's ideas about translation are wonderful. AND, there's a bonus Nabokov short story hanging out in the back of the book which he translated , so you get to see him put his convictions to the test, sort of--and an interesting choice, because Leggi tutto

OK, so this is a pretty haphazard, random, seemingly disorganized ramble through traditions of international literature, issues of translation, of style, of aesthetics, of sentimentality. It's as if the reader is at a bar with Thirlwell and he's holding court, shooting shit with an air of playful kn Leggi tutto

Updated 10-17-13 to four stars (from three), because four years later, I am still thinking about this book. Original review: Kind of like an extended essay that one would write for English class. The main idea is that novelists’ styles are influenced by what came before them, but that sometimes langu Leggi tutto

While discussing possible subjects for my senior honors thesis with Professor Alfred David , my school's department chair at the time, I mentioned that I might like to explore the role of the uncanny in Kafka's works. Professor David responded that, although he didn't disagree that the topic could ma Leggi tutto

Entertaining, engagingly playful book of literary criticism, a homage to the art of the novel via a digressive, witty discussion about style, translation, romance and realism, the citizenship of writers, and what ever else cross references with the above. Thirlwell seems exceptionally well-read for

a masterpiece of literature analysis looking at style (conclusion is that style is international, even translatable from originally written languages, character is banal, flukes and coincidences happen, at times happily, but are just that, exile and immigration make a difference and at times very de Leggi tutto

I'm half-way through this delightful exploration of European fiction. On the evidence of this book, Thirlwell seems to be one of those exceptionally lucky and intelligent young men who have discovered their métier – and I'd be completely jealous of him if this book wasn't so much fun to read. His ma Leggi tutto