3.0
Nightwood
ByPublisher Description
The fiery and enigmatic masterpiece—one of the greatest novels of the Modernist era.
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" (Times Literary Supplement). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous.The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction—there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another persona woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature.
Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesNightwood Reviews
3.0
rou
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“seduced me into a frenzy with its tugging at my heart, at my whole being, and at my identity as a reader”
Elizabeth
Created 5 days agoShare
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Christian Gray
Created 7 days agoShare
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“So hopelessly fateful a book that stirs up a lot of beauty in the wake of its pain. That we only get to know Robin intimately through the perspectives of those that tried to hold her marks an emotional distance that never decreases. It is clear that Robin knows herself only in others; she is everyone but herself, least of all the incumbent lover in the lives of Felix, Nora, and Jenny - and the way they symbolize the things that she doesn’t want such as antiquity/aristocracy, motherhood, and consumption.
And then there is the doctor; more woman than man, “the last woman… bearded.” One of the most special characters that I have come across and with orations that simultaneously blind and give sight.
Can’t wait to read this again.”
uygar
Created 11 days agoShare
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“carpik iliskiler, ihanetler, delirmeler en sevdiğim”
Kylie Schneck
Created 22 days agoShare
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About Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY, and worked as a journalist in New York before leaving the country to spend many years in Paris and London. She returned to New York in 1941, and lived in Greenwich Village until her death.
Other books by Djuna Barnes
Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson is the author of nine novels, including Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel), Lighthousekeeping, Sexing the Cherry, and Weight.
Other books by Jeanette Winterson
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