Browse the Bookshelves Shelf 5 |
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Embers by Sandor Marai, Carol Brown Janeway (Translator) Knopf, 215 pages |
from Amazon.com:
In Sándor Márai's Embers, two old men, once the best of friends, meet after a 41-year break in their relationship. They dine together, taking the same places at the table that they had assumed on the last meal they shared, then sit beside each other in front of a dying fire, one of them nearly silent, the other one, his host, slowly and deliberately tracing the course of their dead friendship. This sensitive, long-considered elaboration of one man's lifelong grievance is as gripping as any adventure story and explains why Márai's forgotten 1942 masterpiece is being compared with the work of Thomas Mann. In some ways, Márai's work is more modern than Mann's. His brevity, simplicity, and succinct, unadorned lyricism may call to mind Latin American novelists like Gabriel García Márquez, or even Italo Calvino. It is the tone of magical realism, although Márai's work is only magical in the sense that he completely engages his reader, spinning a web of words as his wounded central character describes his betrayal and abandonment at the hands of his closest friend. Even the setting, an old castle, evokes dark fairy tales. The story of the rediscovery of Embers is as fascinating as the novel itself. A celebrated Hungarian novelist of the 1930s, Márai survived the war but was persecuted by the Communists after they came to power. His books were suppressed, even destroyed, and he was forced to flee his country in 1948. He died in San Diego in 1989, one year before the neglected Embers was finally reprinted in his native land. This reprint was discovered by the Italian writer and publisher Roberto Calasso, and the subsequent editions have become international bestsellers. All of Márai's novels are now slated for American publication. --Regina Marler |
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Zarafa: A Giraffe's True Story, from
Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris by Michael Allin Walker & Co., 224 pages |
from Amazon.com:
Zarafa was a gentle 19th-century giraffe, a simple animal
whose life was dictated by the tumultuous times around her. From the
African savanna where she was caught and tamed as an infant, Zarafa was
shipped down the Nile--along with the meat of her mother and several
hundred human slaves--to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. From there
she sailed on to France, a gift from Muhammad Ali, the "Renaissance
Barbarian" viceroy of Egypt, intended to distract King Charles X while
Egyptian forces invaded Greece. As political ploy, it didn't work. But
as ambassador from an exotic land, this odd animal captivated the French
people for almost two decades, as she lived out her life as part of the
royal menagerie. Michael Allin intertwines natural history with a brutal chapter in the history of civilization, augmenting the clarity of both. This story of one docile animal contrasts sharply with those of the human profiteers, warmongers, and interlopers who ultimately decide her fate. But Zarafa's otherworldly charm also helps us to understand the intrigue that led Napoleon to bring not only his troops, but a small army of European intellectuals to study all aspects of Egyptian culture and history, in the invasion that sets up her story. --Lauran Cole Warner |
Last revised January 9, 2005