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Cargando... The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identitypor Daniel Mendelsohn
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.  jimrgill | Mar 5, 2017 |    ) ebeach | Jul 8, 2015 |  ) KatrinkaV | Oct 23, 2012 | ) jwhenderson | Apr 1, 2012 |  ) leeinaustin | Feb 27, 2008 | sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)814.54Literature English (North America) American essays 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (3.53)
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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. (