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Sto caricando le informazioni... New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the Citydi Andrei Codrescu
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. New Orleans is Catholic, pagan, poor, and Bohemian. The music is the Devil's music and we are a cesspool of sin. The Crescent City. If you ever visit New Orleans you will never forget the time you spent there. If I had never visited New Orleans prior to reading New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings From the City, I would have made my way there as soon as I finished. I'm listening to Second Line music as I type these words. Codrescu, a Louisiana State University professor, introduced us to the city at ground level. He didn't try to glamorize the city nor did he try to take us on a tour of its most popular places. These essays ranged from the details and familiar faces at the local bar scene to the history of the city's cemeteries and its burying rituals. With each essay, Codrescu takes the reader on a daily walk through the city revealing a hidden treasure each time. Katrina found us dreaming. The world watched New Orleans drown when the levees broke. Codrescu put it this way: We already knew who's going to pay for all this: the poor. They always do. The whole country's garbage flows down the Mississippi to them. Until now, they turned all that waste into song; they took the sins of American unto themselves. But this blues now is just too big New Orleans is my favorite city to visit in literature. New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings From the City reminded me why New Orleans is and always will be my favorite city. I've been a fan of Codrescu for years through his spoken word bits he's done on National Public Radio (NPR). This is a collection of essays that he's written over a twenty year period about his adopted city of New Orleans, and it is a marvelous read. Codrescu's humor and insight are always sharp, and ordering this collection in this way allows the reader to follow his love affair with the city as it evolves from an initial infatuation to a deep and abiding love (the good and the bad), with the dark, unhappy moments that come with the package. Codrescu sees more from a coffee shop window than most of us can see in a year of observing our own neighborhood. Knowing about hurricane Katrina and post-Katrina New Orleans only serves to make many of his early observations even more relevant and powerful. Codrescu's essays reveal an ever-present awareness, likely shared by his neighbors, that the City was living on the edge of disaster. I normally recommend reading collections like this in bits and pieces, and, certainly, one could do that, but the coherency of this anthology is so striking that I'd suggest taking it all in as you would a memoir or biography - a memoir is what this anthology turns out to be. In 1947 Louis Armstrong posited the musical question, “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” Sixty years later, this chestnut has taken on a whole new meaning, and (if you have any kind of heart at all) has a tendency to stick in the throat. This collection of mostly short musings in, around, and about the Crescent City finds Transylvanian transplant Andrei Codrescu in his cups and in his element and shows us exactly what it should mean. You might think that the Deep South would be an odd choice of pot for a former Eastern Bloc no-goodnik to replant himself in, but with further contemplation, it does make sense. First of all, there is the vampire connection, a Bohemian sense of empire gone to dangerous seed, and a certain resigned patience that someone familiar with Soviet-style can-do attitude might recognize and respond to (eventually) in the low-gear stifling heat. Arriving in town in 1985, Codrescu wasted no time in surrounding himself with like-minded writers, artists, and miscreants which all make for an entertaining read as they play out their fantastical roles on a rotting, vibrantly-colored stage. There is a bracingly abrupt pause between Codrescu’s description of a burgeoning art scene and the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Most of this book is concerned with the years between 1985 and 2005, but there is an epilogue chillingly entitled, poetry will not end with the world. “It’s heartbreaking watching my city sink,” Codrescu writes. “New Orleans will be rebuilt, but it will never again be the city I know and love.” After an entire book taken up showing us what we were missing, Codrescu unwittingly showed the world exactly what it should miss. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Fiction.
Literature.
Short Stories.
HTML: A "lovely collection" of essays by the NPR commentator about his beloved adopted city, both before and after Hurricane Katrina (Publishers Weekly). Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)976.335History and Geography North America South Central U.S. Louisiana Southeast Louisiana Orleans ParishClassificazione LCVotoMedia:
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From 1985 to 2005 (and then an afterword post-Katrina), Codrescu shares some of his writing from New Orleans. It's beautiful and sometimes gritty, reflecting both the light and dark of the city of dreams. He writes a few times of the parallels between New Orleans and Venice, which I had not previously considered, but having visited both, I get it. Venice had a similar effect on me- like walking into a magical city, out of real life and into a fantasy. Lovely. ( )