acommonreader.st
The Quest by Pío Baroja Translated by Isaac Goldberg (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1922)“Before [1898], in the period of adventures, Spain was led by Don Quixote. From now on, it would be directed by Sancho Panza.” – Pío Baroja I am duplicating the online resources for Baroja that I listed in The Restlessness of Shanti […]
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at the prison camp in Ekibastuz (Kazakhstan) Such is the fate of Russian books today: They bob up to the surface, if ever they do, plucked down to the skin. So it was recently with Bulgakov’s Master–its feathers floated over only later. So also with this novel of mine: In order to give […]
Illustration by Josef Lada from The Good Soldier Švejk Picture sourceSeveral recent nonfiction reads have included quite a bit on World War I and The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek (my keyboard mojo is going to be sorely tested with this book) was mentioned. As I posted recently, Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August […]
The Restlessness of Shanti Andía and Other Writings by Pío Baroja Translated and with an introduction by Anthony Kerrigan (The University of Michigan Press, 1959) Picture source Text on the back: HEMINGWAY: Allow me to pay this small tribute to you who taught so much to those of us who wanted to be writers when […]
First edition in English, Translated by Eugene Schuyler. New York: Leypoldt and Holt, 1867.Note: I am moving this post from July 23rd to here so it is closer to the discussion posts. I feel I should spend a moment on the title, which has been a problem since the first English translation. The Russian title […]
Robinson Crusoe first edition (1719) Picture sourceA story can be so firmly cemented as a cultural touchstone that you think you know it without having ever read it. Part of my interest in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe comes from wanting to see what is consistent and what is different from my expectations. I was planning […]
Portrait of Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev By Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1879) Picture sourceA few links on Turgenev. I’ll link to individual works as I cover them. BIOGRAPHY Wikipedia entry ONLINE WORKS Most online works use translations by Constance Garnett Works at Google Books or Project Gutenberg Audio works available at LibriVox ADDITIONAL (most of my previous links […]
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis Translation by Kimon Friar Simon and Schuster, New York, 1958 They think of me as a scholar, an intellectual, a pen-pusher. And I am none of them. When I write, my fingers get covered not in ink, but in blood. I think I am nothing more than […]
Picture source(Archimedes: The Palimpsest Project) Last Friday, The Wall Street Journal had an article on the trove of ancient manuscripts being found or salvaged using new technologies. Also, many manuscripts are being digitized and posted online. Since I can’t find the article online, I’ll pass on the links mentioned. The British Library Key works:Mozart’s thematic […]
Alexander Pushkin by Vasily Tropinin (1827) Picture sourceI only know a little bit about Alexander Pushkin but find him a fascinating character. My limited introduction to him so far has been the movie Amadeus, which took his play “Mozart and Salieri” as a starting point. Eugene Onegin will obviously suffer since I am dealing with […]
The Olympia Press’ cover of Lolita Picture source There are many informative sites dedicated to Nabokov and Lolita, but unfortunately many of the links I tried at these sites no longer exist. Hopefully the following links will stick around for a while. Vladimir Nabokov Wikipedia entry for Vladimir Nabokov The gateway to an extended interview […]
A few links with background information on William Faulkner and As I Lay Dying: William Faulkner William Faulkner on the Web (hosted by the University of Mississippi)—plenty of pages on his life and works as well as information on Oxford and Rowan Oak. Extensive details on his life at the Faulkner Archives (again from Ole […]
Homer invoking the muse Illustration by John Flaxman, engraving by William Blake Picture sourceEnter The Iliad on a search engine and you will get close to one million matches. I only went through the first few pages of results and found the following links helpful: Various versions of the text at Project Gutenberg and at […]
Gravestone and plaque for Kafka family, Prague “Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.” — Franz Kafka Back to my Modernism kick with a short work by Kafka. I don’t believe I’ve read any of his work since college, so it will […]
Picture sourceI think I’ll go with the shortened name of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. The long title is the reader’s first clue that nothing in the novel will be to the point. Here are some links on the work and the author: Laurence Sterne Wikipedia’s entry on the author The Shandean […]
Isaac Babel Picture sourceThere is a wealth of information regarding Isaac Babel available online, a tribute to the power of his stories despite having been “erased” by the Soviet regime for many years. Here is a list of some of the available resources: Babel’s Wikipedia entry Gregory Freidin, Professor, Director of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities […]
John Gielgud as Leontes Picture source Text of the play The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (MIT) Project Gutenberg MaximumEdge.com has a useful search feature Links about the play Wikipedia’s entry on the play “Retelling the Tale” by Gideon Lester at the American Repertory Theatre site—a performance history Notes on the […]
While I had The Periodic Table on my list to re-read soon, I was surprised when a co-worker recommended it. It was such a coincidence, I thought now was a good time to approach it again after more than 20 years. Originally published in 1975, my first encounter with it was when it was translated […]
Picture source While there are some online resources for Walter Pater, the number doesn’t seem in proportion to the influence he had on other writers. Here are a few links: Pater’s entries at Wikipedia Works available on Project Gutenberg or at manybooks.net Pater’s entry in The Victorian Web Subir Grewal has a nice page on […]
Listed below are a few online resources I found on Virginia Woolf and the two books I intend to read now. VIRGINIA WOOLF Virginia Woolf’s Wikipedia entry Works available at Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg Australia has ebooks available to more of Woolfs’ books. Copyright law will vary depending on country. Virginia Woolf seminar page from […]