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MOURNING DIARY

Name: MOURNING DIARY
Author: Roland Barthes
ISBN: 978-0-8090-6233-1

by Roland Barthes & translated by Richard Howard ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 2010

A catharsis for writer and reader alike.

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The French philosopher opens his heart in a book he never intended to publish.

Following the death of his mother in 1977, Barthes (1915–1980) mourned her with a series of daily reflections written on typewriter paper that he had cut into quarters. These served to focus and distill the writing, which he would do in the morning before working on his course preparation and his last masterwork, Camera Lucida (1980). “Suffering, like a stone… / (around my neck, / deep inside me)” he writes on Mar. 24, 1978, and then underscores the image a couple weeks later: “Despair: the world is too theatrical, a part of the language. // A stone.” The author uses Proust as a frequent point of comparison, with references to Tolstoy and others as well. Though there is little suggestion that Barthes is writing for anyone but himself, he ponders early in the process, “Who knows? Maybe something valuable in these notes?” His musings encompass not only the death of his mother but the essence of mortality: “The truth about mourning is quite simple: now that maman is dead, I am faced with death (nothing any longer separates me from it except time).” As the anniversary of her death approaches: “As for death, maman’s death gave me the (previously quite abstract) certainty that all men are mortal—that there would never be any discrimination—and the certainty of having to die by that logic soothed me.” Yet such soothing doesn’t alleviate his suffering, as he subsequently acknowledges: “I write my suffering less and less yet it grows all the stronger, shifting to the realm of the eternal, since I no longer write it.” With one entry to a page and reproductions from the writer’s diary cards, the volume invites comparison with Nabokov’s posthumously published The Original of Laura (2009), yet where that novel remains incomplete, each of these entries is complete in itself.

A catharsis for writer and reader alike.

Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-8090-6233-1

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: June 4, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
MYTHOLOGIES
by Roland Barthes & translated by Richard Howard and Annette Lavers

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SEMIOTIC CHALLENGE
by Roland Barthes translated by Richard Howard

- BOOK REVIEW
THE RUSTLE OF LANGUAGE
by Roland Barthes translated by Richard Howard

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.