Nothing to Be Frightened of - Brossura

Barnes, Julian

Brossura

ISBN 10: 030735699X ISBN 13: 9780307356994

Casa editrice: Random House of Canada Ltd, 2009

Riassunto

"I don’t believe in God, but I miss him." So begins Julian Barnes’s brilliant new book that is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the writer Jules Renard. Barnes also draws poignant portraits of the last days of his parents, recalled with great detail, affection and exasperation. Other examples he takes up include writers, "most of them dead and quite a few of them French," as well as some composers, for good measure.

The grace with which Barnes weaves together all of these threads makes the experience of reading the book nothing less than exhilarating. Although he cautions us that "this is not my autobiography," the book nonetheless reveals much about Barnes the man and the novelist: how he thinks and how he writes and how he lives. At once deadly serious and dazzlingly playful,Nothing to Be Frightened Of is a wise, funny and constantly surprising tour of the human condition.
From the Hardcover edition.

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Recensione:

"Death has a habit of bringing the best out in writers...Given its subject matter the whole book has an unexpectedly jaunty air. On virtually every page there is a good joke, even when – or perhaps especially when – Barnes is writing about the grimmest events. Julian Barnes is wonderful at keeping awe and flippancy in perfect balance...One of the joys of this book is that it contains so many playful asides, so many exhilaration diversions from its gloomy central theme."
—Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

"It is not, Barnes tells us, an autobiography. It is rather an essay in the best sense: speculative and precise, intimate and metaphysical, capacious and democratic in the variety of voices, alive and dead, that are invited to counsel the author as he edges his way towards the void"
—Brian Dillon, Times Literary Supplement

"Julian Barnes is a delightful companion and much of the book (its informal tone included) is like an extended and very interesting conversation."
—Cressida Connolly, Literary Review

"Compelling...witty and erudite...consistently interesting and entertaining."
—Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

"This book is both fun and funny. It is sharp, too, in the sense of painful as well as witty...You are in the presence of a nimble mind in complete mastery of, and engagement with, his chosen subject."
—Lucy Beresford, New Statesman

"Intensely fascinating."
—Jane Shilling, The Times

"Entertaining, intriguing, absorbing and so expansive that I was startled, on finishing, to note its brevity...Irresistible reading."
—Penelope Lively, Financial Times

"Superb...[Barnes’s] funniest and frankest work yet."
—Kate Summerscale, Daily Telegraph
From the Hardcover edition.

L'autore:

JULIAN BARNES is the author of over twenty books, for which he received the Man Booker Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the David Cohen Prize for Literature and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in France, the Prix Médicis and the Prix Femina, and in 2004 he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture; and in Austria, the State Prize for European Literature. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He lives in London.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Random House of Canada Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 030735699X
• ISBN 13: 9780307356994
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 250