Fai clic su di un'immagine per andare a Google Ricerca Libri.
Sto caricando le informazioni... The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identitydi Daniel Mendelsohn
Nessuno Sto caricando le informazioni...
Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. How does one resolve the mystery of his own identity? Can one understand the rest of the world if he does not know himself first? These questions and more form the themes of this rare if not unique memoir. Daniel Mendelsohn shares his own personal history through essays on the ways that he, and by reference we, defines himself. The geographies, paternities, mythologies and what he calls multiplicities lead him to a summary section that discusses identities. Concluding at the end of his musings that "you live in the middle voice, you are here and you are there," (p 206), and this is the cumulative result of the experiences of a life - our personal mythology. By weaving into his personal experience the lessons of classical mythology (Ovid et. al.) Mendelsohn pursues the nature of the desire. Since Plato discussed the relationship between eros and the good this question has been a critical part of human existence. The Elusive Embrace updates the search for the nature of this relationship and its part in the "riddle of identity". Beautifully written and deeply felt this is a book to return to again and again. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Hailed for its searing emotional insights, and for the astonishing originality with which it weaves together personal history, cultural essay, and readings of classical texts by Sophocles, Ovid, Euripides, and Sappho, The Elusive Embrace is a profound exploration of the mysteries of identity.nbsp;nbsp;It is also a meditation in which the author uses his own divided life to investigate the "rich conflictedness of things," the double lives all of us lead. Daniel Mendelsohn recalls the deceptively quiet suburb where he grew up, torn between his mathematician father's pursuit of scientific truth and the exquisite lies spun by his Orthodox Jewish grandfather; the streets of manhattan's newest "gay ghetto," where "desire for love" competes with "love of desire;" and the quiet moonlit house where a close friend's small son teaches him the meaning of fatherhood.nbsp;nbsp;And, finally, in a neglected Jewish cemetery, the author uncovers anbsp;nbsp;family secret that reveals the universal need for storytelling, for inventing myths of the self.nbsp;nbsp;The book that Hilton Als calls "equal to Whitman's 'Song of Myself,'" The Elusive Embrace marks a dazzling literary debut. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
Discussioni correntiNessunoCopertine popolari
Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)814.54Literature English (North America) American essays 20th Century 1945-1999Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
Sei tu?Diventa un autore di LibraryThing. |
As a Classics scholar, Mendelsohn informs his observations of contemporary life with relevant analogues from Greek language and drama. Using the Greek construction of “men” and “de” (i.e., “On the one hand…but then again, on the other…”), Mendelsohn (whose surname begins with the combination of these two Greek syllables) demonstrates the conflated binaries of his own life (men, as an intellectual…de, as a sexual being) as well as broader humanistic concerns (men, the desire for love…de, the love of desire).
The references to AOL chat rooms now seem quaint, and the somewhat lengthy chronicle of his family’s history in the latter quarter of the book gets a bit tedious, but ultimately, Mendelsohn’s transcendent prose and the sheer power of his youthful memories will strike a bittersweet chord with many gay men of a certain age. ( )