Kirjahaku

-- Scottish Historical Review

From the preeminent writer of Taiwanese nativist fiction and the leading translator of Chinese literature come these poignant accounts of everyday life in rural and small-town Taiwan. Huang is frequently cited as one of the most original and gifted storytellers in the Chinese language, and these selections reveal his genius. In "The Two Sign Painters," TV reporters ambush two young workers from the country taking a break atop a twenty-four-story building. "His Son's Big Doll" introduces the tortured soul inside a walking advertisement, and in "Xiaoqi's Cap" a dissatisfied pressure-cooker salesman is fascinated by a young schoolgirl.Huang's characters -- generally the uneducated and disadvantaged who must cope with assaults on their traditionalism, hostility from their urban brethren and, of course, the debilitating effects of poverty -- come to life in all their human uniqueness, free from idealization.

Marcel Proust once wrote, “There is no longer anybody, not even myself, since I cannot leave my bed, who will go along the Rue du Repos to visit the little Jewish cemetery where my grandfather, following a custom that he never understood, went for so many years to lay a stone on his parents’ grave.” Investigating the origin and significance of this statement, Antoine Compagnon offers new insight into the great author’s underappreciated Jewish side.Compagnon traces Proust’s ties to the French Jewish community, examining his relations with his mother’s successful and assimilated family, the Weils. He explores how French Jews read and responded to Proust’s masterpiece In Search of Lost Time in the 1920s and 1930s. Challenging contemporary critics who perceive self-hatred or even antisemitism in Proust’s work, Compagnon shows that many Jewish intellectuals and young Zionists admired and vigorously debated the novel, some seeing it as a source for pride in their Jewish identity. He also considers Proust’s portrayal of homosexuality and how it relates to notions of Jewishness. A work of remarkable erudition and deep research, Proust, a Jewish Way brings to light the vanished world of Proust’s first Jewish readers and shows how it can illuminate our reading of the great novelist today.

Marcel Proust once wrote, “There is no longer anybody, not even myself, since I cannot leave my bed, who will go along the Rue du Repos to visit the little Jewish cemetery where my grandfather, following a custom that he never understood, went for so many years to lay a stone on his parents’ grave.” Investigating the origin and significance of this statement, Antoine Compagnon offers new insight into the great author’s underappreciated Jewish side.Compagnon traces Proust’s ties to the French Jewish community, examining his relations with his mother’s successful and assimilated family, the Weils. He explores how French Jews read and responded to Proust’s masterpiece In Search of Lost Time in the 1920s and 1930s. Challenging contemporary critics who perceive self-hatred or even antisemitism in Proust’s work, Compagnon shows that many Jewish intellectuals and young Zionists admired and vigorously debated the novel, some seeing it as a source for pride in their Jewish identity. He also considers Proust’s portrayal of homosexuality and how it relates to notions of Jewishness. A work of remarkable erudition and deep research, Proust, a Jewish Way brings to light the vanished world of Proust’s first Jewish readers and shows how it can illuminate our reading of the great novelist today.

From an eminent scholar, a spirited introduction to one of the great polymaths in the history of Europe.Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) is best known in the English-speaking world for his contributions to mathematics and physics, with both a triangle and a law in fluid mechanics named after him. Meanwhile, the classic film My Night at Maud’s popularized Pascal’s wager, an invitation to faith that has inspired generations of theologians. Despite the immensity of his reputation, few read him outside French schools. In A Summer with Pascal, celebrated literary critic Antoine Compagnon opens our minds to a figure somehow both towering and ignored.Compagnon provides a bird’s-eye view of Pascal’s life and significance, making this volume an ideal introduction. Still, scholars and neophytes alike will profit greatly from his masterful readings of the Pensées—a cornerstone of Western philosophy—and the Provincial Letters, in which Pascal advanced wry theological critiques of his contemporaries. The concise, taut chapters build upon one another, easing into writings often thought to be forbidding and dour. With Compagnon as our guide, these works are not just accessible but enchanting.A Summer with Pascal brings the early modern thinker to life in the present. In an age of profound existential doubt and assaults on truth and reason, in which religion and science are so often crudely opposed, Pascal’s sophisticated commitment to both challenges us to meet the world with true intellectual vigor.

In the late twentieth century, the common sense approach to literature was deemed naive. Roland Barthes proclaimed the death of the author, and Hillis Miller declared that all interpretation is theoretical. In many a literature department, graduate students spent far more time on Derrida and Foucault than on Shakespeare and Milton. Despite this, common sense approaches to literature--including the belief that literature represents reality and authorial intentions matter--have resisted theory with tenacity. As a result, argues Antoine Compagnon, theorists have gone to extremes, boxed themselves into paradoxes, and distanced others from their ideas. Eloquently assessing the accomplishments and failings of literary theory, Compagnon ultimately defends the methods and goals of a theoretical commitment tempered by the wisdom of common sense. While it constitutes an engaging introduction to recent theoretical debates, the book is organized not by school of thought but around seven central questions: literariness, the author, the world, the reader, style, history, and value. What makes a work literature? Does fiction imitate reality? Is the reader present in the text? What constitutes style? Is the context in which a work is written important to its apprehension? Are literary values universal? As he examines how theory has wrestled these themes, Compagnon establishes not a simple middle-ground but a state of productive tension between high theory and common sense. The result is a book that will be met with both controversy and sighs of relief.

A few years ago, Antoine Compagnon was asked to host a radio broadcast, every day for an entire summer, on a formidable subject: Michel de Montaigne. From that experience came this engaging and entertaining book, A Summer with Montaigne. An intelligent and thought-provoking treatise in forty chapters that will introduce readers unfamiliar with Montaigne to his unique brilliance and remind those who already know Montaigne’s work of its vitality, force, and enduring timeliness.Compagnon breathes life into the musings of Montaigne, approaching his subject not as the recluse many imagine him to have been, but rather a multi-faceted individual of complex thought and astonishing analytical prowess. Once the mayor of Bordeaux, Montaigne was a committed spirit of his time, advising his powerful contemporaries and always in touch with the questions and concerns of the moment, of which many remain pressing today. Composed over a period of twenty years, Montaigne’s Essays deal with timeless themes. From the problems posed by religion, war, power and friendship to humankind’s ridiculous weaknesses, Montaigne’s Essays remain a moving commentary on what it means to be a human being in any age.

«Jeg finner alle emner like fruktbare», skriver Montaigne for ham kan selv de mest dagligdagse hendelser bli til gjenstand for kontemplasjon over livets store spørsmål: Et fall fra hesteryggen fører til innsikter om menneskets bevisshet det å miste en tann blir et utgangspunkt for fabuleringer om døden et møte med en hermafroditt gir grunn til å fundere på det uregjerlige ved viljen og begjæret. Gjennom førti korte kapitler inviterer Antoine Compagnon til en vandring gjennon Montaignes mangesidige og motsetningsfylte tankeverden på en lett og uanstrengt måte presenterer han Montaignes refleksjoner omkring mennesket, livet og døden, krig og fred, vennskap og kjærlighet. Antoine Compagnon er forfatter og professor ved Collège de France i Paris og Columbia University i London. En sommer med Montaigne var opprinnelig en føljetong, fremført på den franske radiokanalen France Inter sommeren 2012 da den sommeren etter kom ut i bokform, ble den gjenstand for stor oppmerksomhet og havnet på bestselgerlistene i Frankrike.

«Baudelaire var litt av en original. Han var myteomspunnet. Da noen av hans ungdomsvenner skrev sine minner fra bohemtiden, var alle opptatt av hvor grov han var i kjeften, hans utsøkte eleganse i klesveien, hans provoserende oppførsel. Baudelaire gjorde seg altså bemerket. «Han hadde en bisarr fremtoning», skrev Champfleury, som blant annet husket at han farget håret grønt.» Hadde det ikke vært for at Charles Baudelaire selv var en mann av paradokser, ville det kanskje virke merkelig å skulle invitere noen til å tilbringe sommeren sammen med en personlighet mange heller vil forbinde med grålysning, skygge og høst, fremfor sol og varme. Men uansett tid på året er denne boken en ypperlig anledning til å stifte bekjentskap med en av den moderne tids aller største diktere og en av modernitetens skarpeste kritikere. Gjennom 33 korte kapitler gir Antoine Compagnon leseren mulighet til å bli kjent med den mange.sidige forfatteren av Det vondes blomar. Baudelaires syn på kvinner, melankoli og kjærlighet, på selvmord og interessen for det onde, er blant temaene som berøres. Akkurat som bestselgeren En sommer med Montaigne, viser Compagnon seg her som en formidabel formidler av det som i utgangspunktet kan synes tungt - helt uten at lettheten han skriver med kompromitterer Baudelaires dybde. En sommer med Baudelaire er oppfølgeren til En sommer med Montaigne, som både ble en kritiker- og publikumsfavoritt da den kom ut på norsk sommeren 2015. Begge var opprinnelig oppført som radioføljetonger på den franske radiokanalen France Inter, sendt i beste sendetid gjennom hele sommeren.

«Våre digitale vaner utvikler seg med lynets hastighet; ny tekno.logi beriker tilværelsen, men gjør den også fattigere; den forandrer våre hverdagslige gester, våre daglige aktiviteter og arbeidsmetoder, vår væremåte og våre nære relasjoner, måten vi leser og skriver på, vårt forbruksmønster og tidsfordriv, måten vi elsker på.» (Antoine Compagnon) I selskap med noen av sine helter fra fortiden - som blant andre Montaigne, Baudelaire og Proust - inviterer .Antoine Compagnon leseren til å reflektere over vår digitale virke.lighet. Gjennom 40 korte, humoristiske kapitler, opprinnelig publisert som blogginnlegg i den franske versjonen av Huffington Post, legger forfatteren ut om sitt forhold til den digitale tidsalderen, om hvordan våre digitale «proteser» - som han kaller sine mange elektroniske hjelpe.midler - i stadig større grad påvirker måten vi lever på, både på godt og vondt. Compagnon viser seg her ikke bare som en skarpsindig obeservatør og kritiker av vår egen tid, men også som litt av en «nerd». Antoine Compagnon er forfatter og professor ved Collège de France og Columbia University. Han har utgitt over 20 bøker om litteratur, deriblant En sommer med Montaigne som ble en bestselger i Norge da den kom ut på norsk i 2015.