Describe Books Supposing Nightwood
| Original Title: | Nightwood |
| ISBN: | 0811216713 (ISBN13: 9780811216715) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Djuna Barnes
Paperback | Pages: 182 pages Rating: 3.66 | 8803 Users | 885 Reviews
Explanation Concering Books Nightwood
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.
Particularize About Books Nightwood
| Title | : | Nightwood |
| Author | : | Djuna Barnes |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 182 pages |
| Published | : | September 26th 2006 by New Directions (first published 1936) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. LGBT. GLBT. Queer. Novels |
Rating About Books Nightwood
Ratings: 3.66 From 8803 Users | 885 ReviewsCrit About Books Nightwood
The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.- Djuna Barnes, NightwoodI listened to this novel one night as I drove from Phoenix to Las Vegas. It was ominously dark, beautiful and creepy. I guess that equally applies to the book as to the drive. Art exists when something can be both creepy and beautiful at the same time. This isn't David Lynch, but I can imagine few other directors directing this book into a movie. Nightwood also gave my The Alexandria Quartet vibes. Barnes like DurrellEveryman dies finally of that poison known as the-heart-in-the-mouth. Yours is in your hand. Put it back. The eater of it will get a taste for you; in the end his muzzle will be heard barking among your ribs.I wish I could say something clever about this book. Ive put it off till now because Im at a loss, as I so often am. Some novels force the breath out of your lungs, they force you to breathe the air they breathe, to live the life they create for you and to believe in the things they tell
A short, but by no means easy novel set in Paris (mostly) in the 1930s. It is semi-autobiographical and contains some strong and memorable characters. My edition has two introductions. The first by T S Eliot says that to truly understand Nightwood you have to have a poetic sensibility (Well thsnks for that Tom; if I don't get it that means I am a complete philistine!!!}. After that I really wanted to hate the book but sadly couldn't. The other intro is an achingly heartfelt and passionate
Nightwood is the sound of hearts breaking, written on the page, spread out for all to see, five lives, five people eviscerated and eviscerating each other. These people fucking kill me, they are so sad and so full of nonsense and so determined to live in their own personal little boxes, striving for epiphanies that they barely even understand, trying to be a certain idea of What a Person Is. Is that what I'm like? Maybe that's what everyone is like. Barnes lays out these characters' lives like
Fourth reading, and it remains just as much a mystery as ever. Marianne Moore said that "reading Djuna Barnes is like reading a foreign language, which you understand," and while I don't disagree I find that any sensation of "comprehension" simply feels like entering another locked room to puzzle out of. A labyrinth with no exit, and I wouldn't have it any other way. [Apr 2017]...After a second reading was compelled to include the missing fifth star. Maybe someday I'll be able to write something
"I have been loved," she said, "By something strange, and it has forgotten me!"Here is something strange, a 1936 landmark of modernist gay poetry disguised as a novella. It's written with unstoppable confidence and verve and the dangerous knowledge that all people are possible, and any of them may be geniuses. It follows a love triangle of three women as they pursue each other hopelessly around the world. A gender-fluid doctor provides commentary and impenetrable advice. "I have a narrative," he
Night people do not bury their dead, but on the neck of you, their beloved and waking, sling the creature, husked of its gestures. And where you go, it goes, the two of you, your living and her dead, that will not die; to daylight, to life, to grief, until both are carrion.Nightwood is such a strange book and this isn't so much a ramrod- straight person's reaction to gay-lesbian literature as the feverish, dream-like quality of the text like you've stumbled into someone's nightmare & can't
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