Author: Juliette AdamPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
Author: Leo TolstoyPublisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241957060
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 491
Book Description
Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed, finding the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner growth against the background of a world limned with extraordinary clarity, grace and colour. Evident too in its brilliant account of a young person's emerging awareness of the world and of his place within it are many of the stances, techniques and themes that would come to full flower in the immortal War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and in the other great works of Tolstoy's maturity.
The Romance of My Childhood and Youth
Author: Juliette AdamTHE ROMANCE OF MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Author: JULIETTE ADAMPublisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
AT the present time, the interest which a writer’s work may have lies greatly in the study of those first impulses which gave it birth, of the surroundings amid which it was elaborated, and of the connection between the end pursued and the achievement. In former times a writer’s personality was of small importance. His works were deemed sufficient. The duality presented by a study of the causes of production, and the production itself, was a matter of interest only to a small minority of readers. By degrees, however, with the writer’s own consent, indiscreet glances were thrown into the personal lives of those whose mission it was to direct, enlighten, or amuse the lives of other people. Forty or fifty years ago the public first read the book, and judged a writer by his writings, and then would often base their judgments on the opinion of some great critic, who had slowly given proof of his knowledge, and whose ideas were found worthy of adoption. To-day it is quite the contrary. A new book[viii] is so generally and indiscreetly announced that the larger portion of the public is quite aware both of the book and of the process of its production. A number of small reviews of the volume are read; they often are, in fact, just so many interviews with the author, and, under the general impression thus imparted, the book is read—a great favour for the writer are such notices, for people might speak of a book and criticise it in that way without ever having read it. General curiosity is insatiable with regard to the small details concerning the habits and customs of an author if he is already celebrated, or is likely to achieve success. But, on the other hand, if the present custom weakens to an infinite degree the elements of personal appreciation of any work, it adds to knowledge of the author’s portrait, which stands out from all these inquiries and indiscretions, with traits of physiognomy that possess, perhaps, more lively interest. We must obviously submit to the custom, and ask ourselves whether, by means of much observation of both the author and his work, we may not obtain a broader and more enlightened criticism, uniting the author’s intentions with the result achieved by his book. [ix]Or else is it because, overworked as we are, we have perhaps become unable to enjoy the delight of reading a book for itself, containing, by chance, no anecdotes which please us—nothing, in fact, outside the actual interest of the book itself, but forming part of it; or is it that we have no longer any time for profound or matured reflection, or judgments expressed in axioms, the terms of which have long been weighed in the balance of thought? It requires time to discover the master thought of any work of real worth, in order to disclose its high morality, its art tendencies. The maddening rule of our new mode of life being the desire to know all things as quickly as possible, we ask the author, whose motives are known beforehand, what he meant to say, or do, or prove, and in this way we think to gain time and not run the risk of “idle dreaming.” Ah! as to dreams, shall we speak of them?—golden money, no longer current, which we scatter behind us in our haste to pursue what others are pursuing. If, by chance, we find it again, how soiled by the road’s dust it seems! The asking of a question or two, and even the explanation of a phenomenon which is often as clear as day, can be undertaken as we hurry along, but simply to examine the “whys and wherefores”[x] of things, or to attempt to discover the laws of facts, and group them methodically, giving the logical relation of these laws in general origins—verily, only a few vulgar slang words can express the impression made on the minds of those who wish to be considered “modern men,” with respect to these very problems of which we, of the elder generation, are so fond, and which are called by the moderns—“stuff.” “In writing your memoirs you encourage what you appear to condemn,” people will doubtless say to me. But I condemn nothing. I simply note a state of mind and ways of life. I feel sure that if in “my time” an author’s work held the first place, and that if nowadays the author himself excites disproportionate interest, the future will establish an equilibrium between these two extremes. If the candles of literary people of the present time are burned at both ends, it is, perhaps, because there remain few embers of the luminous torches of the past. The authors of the future will be obliged to renew their provision of wood, which must burn itself out, normally, in the middle. However this may be, it is, perhaps, profitable to register the facts in a fleeting epoch for the use of those who are running in pursuit of an epoch which is to take its place. [xi]Old people are fond of describing what took place in former times, and they have a real mission so to do if only they will refrain from trying to enforce upon us the superiority of the teaching of that which has disappeared, and if they will tell their story simply, leaving a younger generation to discover its lesson, and from it form conclusions. Those of the older generation who educated us thought sentimentalism and humanity, which appeared at first brutally, and then were gloriously driven back by the Terror and the Empire, had returned again triumphantly. Moreover, the Revolution and Bonaparte had opened our gates to a foreign influx. Our fathers gave shelter to every Utopian idea brought from Italy, Germany, Austria, and Russia. The mixture was so confusing that all manner of extravagant things sprang from it. The consciences of the “men of progress” were concentrated around the social conception of the “suffering classes,” and the political conception involved in the crimes of the “higher classes.” Love and indignation were the food with which they fed our youthful hearts. The Bible, the socialism of Christ, and examples of sublimity of character taken from Greece and Rome, became the strange mixture that was the[xii] guiding spirit of our fathers’ action, and inspired our primal ideas. People of reason, who possessed solid common-sense, the Bourgeois, were, naturally, to a much overrated degree, our enemies. We are, in all our primal impulses, the children of the men of 1848; our very reaction was born of their action. We have been led on solely by their example; haunted, just as they were, by the feeling that we should add to our unlimited dreams what they had deemed to be the counterpoise to the great love of humanity, namely, science; but a science which we thought was to bring relief to the worker, by machinery, a cheaper rate of living to the poor, and a more equal distribution of wealth to the unfortunate. “The rights of man,” that oft-repeated phrase which has never been rightly understood by those who called themselves its defenders, possessed for them, before, during, and after 1848, only one significance, namely: the realisation by society in general of the greatest sum of possible happiness for each individual. Those who at that time proclaimed themselves socialists—and this tradition exists among the same class of the present day—took no account of general[xiii] society, of its affiliations, of its necessary average existence, or of its “badly cut coats,” so to speak. They refused to see opposed to the rights of the socialist man the general social rights, which mean, in plain words, the rights of each individual man, and which, summed up, become the rights of all men. Religious dogma alone can affirm the absolute right of an individual soul, because each soul comes in contact with other souls only in the infinite. Absoluteness can only be realised in evolutions towards death. But contact with living men has its contingencies which society pulverises well or badly, according as individuals mingle together happily or not, or according as they disturb society or serve it well. Social problems, whether robed in dithyrambic form or clad in offensive rags, are unable to force upon society reforms which are laid down in names unless society has become ready to assimilate them; otherwise they upset society, agitate it, and throw it back on reaction. I am the daughter of a man who was a sincere sectarian, disinterested even to self-sacrifice, and who dreamed of absolute liberty and absolute equality. Until the terrible year of 1870, his mind[xiv] mastered my own. For an instant, during the days of the Commune, he thought his dreams were about to be realised. Were he alive now, he would be a disciple of Monsieur Brisson, whose political ancestor he was. He would have pursued only one idea: the upsetting of everything. The revolutionists and the Brissonists are, after all, only belated and antiquated minds, not yet freed from sophistries by the terrible vision of 1870; not stimulated by the lamentations heard from men on French soil, when trodden under foot by Prussia; not armed with patriotic combativeness by the sight of the panting flesh of those provinces which were torn from France, and which, in the figurative image of our country, occupy the place of the heart...FROM THE BOOKS.
Munsey's Magazine
Author: Battlegrounds of Memory
Author: Clay LewisPublisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820320090
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
In Battlegrounds of Memory Clay Lewis crosses seven generations of his family to illuminate a heritage of romantic hope and abject defeat, seeking freedom from the past by understanding it. His story is a cry from the heart, reaching into the depths of a family's collective soul and finding hope in the midst of despair. Heritage was a heavy burden on Lewis's parents, children of the South whose denial of their past bound them more tightly to it. Their battles with each other and their son followed old patterns of intergenerational conflict. The book opens with a harrowing scene in which the author as a teenager is urged by his mother to discipline his drunken father on Christmas Eve. In the forty years since he assaulted his father that night, Lewis has struggled to understand how his family was changed by the history they had experienced--the wilderness frontier, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. How they were changed ultimately became his legacy. In the Marines he found that his capacity for violence ran deep; in his unhappy marriages he found himself repeating old mistakes. Over the years he began to recognize that the terrible wounds on both sides of his family formed patterns of scapegoats and rebels, of betrayal and grief, and finally of yearning and hope. In this knowledge he found freedom. Battlegrounds of Memory is a work of deep courage--at times humorous and ironic, at other times melancholy and lyrical, it is told with an amazing sensitivity and passion. It is a strong testament to the force of love.
The Spirit of St. Louis
Author: Charles A. LindberghPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780743237055
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 596
Book Description
Lindbergh's own account of his historic transatlantic solo flight in 1927.
Testament of My Childhood
Author: Robert de RoquebrunePublisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442638133
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
Life in a Quebec manor-house at the turn of the century is colourfully described in this biography of his childhood by Robert de Roquebrune. Skilfully woven into the texture of reminiscences about his own growing up are absorbing accounts of the early history of Canada. Through his ancestors, whose careers and personalities live vividly in accounts preserved by the family, there is a strong feeling for the continuity of life and traditions from the France of Louis XIII to what was to become of the province of Quebec. This is the first time this classic of French Canada has been translated into English.
My Walk Through Life with Childhood Trauma
Author: A. Tanders, Ed.D.Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
My Walk Through Life with Childhood Trauma By: A. Tanders, Ed.D. My Walk Through Life with Childhood Trauma comprises of Dr. Tanders’ life from a young child until adulthood. This book is the life’s work of many trials and tribulations as a young child, obstacles, childhood trauma, anxiety, losses, abandonment issues, and how God played an amazing role in continuous healing from all that was endured. Dr. Tanders’ story is intended to uplift, show resiliency, transparency, and her faith in God. This book should encourage others to seek self-love, self-healing, and personal growth. Forgiveness is a powerful tool for the person that need forgiveness and for those of you who may need to be forgiven.
The Last Children of Mill Creek
Author: Vivian GibsonPublisher:
ISBN: 9781948742641
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek, a neighborhood of St. Louis razed in 1955 to build a highway. Her family, friends, church community, and neighbors were all displaced by urban renewal. In this moving memoir, Gibson recreates the every day lived experiences of her family, including her college-educated mother, who moved to St. Louis as part of the Great Migration, her friends, shop owners, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit, African-American community, and reflects upon what it means that Mill Creek was destroyed by racism and "urban renewal."
Encyclopedia of American Humorists
Author: Steven H. GalePublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317362276
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 578
Book Description
First published in 1988, this book contains entries on famous American Humorists. Humor has been present in American literature, from the beginning, and has developed characteristics that reflect the American character, both regional and national. Although American literature was, in the past, treated as inferior to British literature, there has always been a large popular audience for the genre, which this book shows. The figures with entries in this encyclopedia not only amuse in their writing, but also aim to enlighten- setting out to expose the foibles and foolishness of society and the individuals who compose it. It is the manner in which these authors try to accomplish this end that determines whether they appear in the volume. Indeed, the book will demonstrate that the best humor has at its base, a ready understanding of human nature.