You could read this book in an hour. You could think about it for the rest of your life.
An evocative conversation between the Nobel Prize–winning novelist and his translator.
Coetzee has long been admired for his sinewy prose, his uncompromising humanism, and his immense sensitivity to the nuances of language in everyday life. This short book records a dialogue between Coetzee and his Spanish translator, Dimópulos, in which they range widely over such questions as these: Does language represent the world, or does it create that world? If we grow up multilingual, do we see the world in different ways? How do languages with grammatical gender organize the world? Should we try to neutralize gender in our own writing and speaking? The stimulus for the dialogue is the publication of Coetzee’s novel, The Pole. That book told the story of an elderly Polish pianist who has a relationship with a Spanish woman whom he meets as his host at a concert in Spain. Coetzee wanted the book to convey a linguistic as well as a musical world. His idea was to have the book, originally written in English, published first in Spanish and then, to use the Spanish version as the base text for all future translations (including the published English version). This move prompts the conversation about how English-language publishing largely controls world literature. More books, they note, are translated from English into other languages than the reverse—a fact they attribute to the Anglo-American resistance to what’s going on in the world outside their purview. They also make the point that world literature splits not just into English and non-English, but into north and south. The Southern Hemisphere, they intuit, lives among languages differently from the Northern. These issues will compel many American readers to reassess the politics of translation and their own literary and linguistic imperialism. Fans of Coetzee will also find a refreshing colloquialism to this book and a respite from his recent judgmentalism about animal rights, Western power, and public institutions.
You could read this book in an hour. You could think about it for the rest of your life.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781324096450
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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