Este sitio utiliza cookies para ofrecer nuestros servicios, mejorar el rendimiento, análisis y (si no estás registrado) publicidad. Al usar LibraryThing reconoces que has leído y comprendido nuestros términos de servicio y política de privacidad. El uso del sitio y de los servicios está sujeto a estas políticas y términos.
After a thirty-year exile in Toronto, self-described "mid-listing" Newfoundland author James Nightingale leaves behind a failed marriage to a successful classical musician, who has taken up with an avant-garde composer, and a middling, if critically successful, career to return temporarily to St. John's to receive an honourary degree from his alma mater. Braving the obstacles of artistic and domestic uncertainty and neglected family obligations'not to mention a book-signing and a launch that go visibly wrong'he meets old friends whose own artistic lives have borne little fruit, and contends with a talented daughter who, in defiance of her mother, has abandoned her classica-music roots in favour of performing "deconstructed" traditional Newfoundland songs, a father suffering from dementia but with a sharp memory of disappointment, and an untrustworthy former publisher who is re-releasing his seminal first novel. Imbued with the language of literature, the imagery of a Newfoundland in flux, and the grace of an author at the height of his powers, Mister Nightingale is at once a diatribe on the vicissitudes of the writing life, and a keen and poignant exploration of one man's coming to terms with the "prevailing anxieties" of la vie quotidienne.… (más)
This is a story of a man -- James Nightingale -- a Newfoundland writer who lived most of his life in Toronto. Now, on the verge of divorce, he returns to Newfoundland to accept an honorary degree from his alma mater, reconnect with family and old friends, and visit his daughter who is attending university there. Reading this book is like getting to know Mister Nightingale, and I found he became like a friend to me. I listened to him -- and was sometimes amused, sometimes fascinated and sometimes a little (just a little) bored or exasperated. Like with real friends. An excellent portrayal of a man dealing with the big, and smaller, challenges of life, set against the landscape and culture of Newfoundland and Labrador. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
At Regensburg he crossed the Danube on his cloak, and there made a broken glass whole again; and, in the house of a wheelwright too mean to spare the kindling, lit a fire with icicles. This story of the burning of the frozen substance of life has, of late, meant much to me, and I wonder now whether inner coldness and desolation may not be the pre-condition for making the world believe, by a kind of fraudulent showmanship, that one's own wretched heart is still aglow. -- W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
And if poetry is not to be the agency of his transfiguration from ignoble to noble, why bother with poetry at all? -- J.M. Coetzee, Youth
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For Glenda and Julia, with love and gratitude.
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
It's been a long day for Mister Nightingale.
Citas
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
High in the air, in my sterile, off-white canister of a room, with only the white noise of a mechanical bird and the mere memory of the scent of apple blossoms, I settled uneasily into my seat and turned the pale blue pages of Lillian's childlike, handwritten script.
After a thirty-year exile in Toronto, self-described "mid-listing" Newfoundland author James Nightingale leaves behind a failed marriage to a successful classical musician, who has taken up with an avant-garde composer, and a middling, if critically successful, career to return temporarily to St. John's to receive an honourary degree from his alma mater. Braving the obstacles of artistic and domestic uncertainty and neglected family obligations'not to mention a book-signing and a launch that go visibly wrong'he meets old friends whose own artistic lives have borne little fruit, and contends with a talented daughter who, in defiance of her mother, has abandoned her classica-music roots in favour of performing "deconstructed" traditional Newfoundland songs, a father suffering from dementia but with a sharp memory of disappointment, and an untrustworthy former publisher who is re-releasing his seminal first novel. Imbued with the language of literature, the imagery of a Newfoundland in flux, and the grace of an author at the height of his powers, Mister Nightingale is at once a diatribe on the vicissitudes of the writing life, and a keen and poignant exploration of one man's coming to terms with the "prevailing anxieties" of la vie quotidienne.
)
Google Books — Cargando...
1