The Diary of A.O. Barnabooth (Recovered Classics) - Softcover

Larbaud, Valery

3.53

43 ratings by Goodreads

9780929701158: The Diary of A.O. Barnabooth (Recovered Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0929701151 ISBN 13: 9780929701158

Publisher: McPherson, 1991

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Published in France in 1913, and in the United States in 1924, The Diary of A.O. Barnabooth is rightly considered one of the first truly original books of the 20th century. Larbaud's novel transforms the traditional "novel of education" into a comic, cosmopolitan search for "self realization." Barnabooth's adventures ricochet from Florence to San Marino, Venice, Trieste, Moscow, Sarajevo, St. Petersburg, Copenhagen. and London, as he strives to solve his spiritual, that is amatory, difficulties.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

In France, Valery Larbaud occupies an important position in 20th century literature. Born in Vichy in 1881, he taught himself 6 languages at an early age and set out to bring world literature into French. He was the first to translate Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Butler, Walt Whitman, and James Joyce (supervising the French translation of Ulysses), among many others. A writer of poetry as well as innovative prose, Larbaud had his career cut short by a stroke, and spent his last 20 years confined to his home. He died in 1957.

A prominent figure in American letters since the late 1950s, Robert Kelly has published over 50 books, including 10 novels, and has won the American Book Award and other prizes for his work. His writing has appeared in "Conjunctions "and other literary magazines. A teacher at Bard College, he lives in Red Hook, NY.

From the Inside Flap:

Here is the prototype of the 20th-century jetsetter, a fabulously wealthy 24-year-old on a free-for-all Grand Tour through the European capitals. Barnabooth is a naive yet brashly opinionated South American who casts about for a new identity with an almost scientific rigor "€" an intensity all the more humorous for the swings between self-delusion and revelation that are so faithfully recorded in a diary that is destined from the start for publication. Barnabooth is essentially a character from Wilde advanced into the 20th century, full of optimism for the future, scorn for the musty generation just passed, and yet subject to the erosion of confidence that marks the psychologies of the characters of Gide, Proust, and Kafka. This is a book that transforms the "novel of education" with a new persona and employs a "stream of consciousness" interior monologue in perhaps its first modern instance. As Justin O'Brien has noted, "[Barnabooth] suffers a progressive loss of illusions]€] And every time he approaches a decision or a judgment he interrupts himself to dissect his thought and determine just what percentage of vanity, of self-deceit, or of affectation has entered into it."

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.