Against Venice (Anti-voyages) (Anti-voyages S.) - Softcover

Debray, Regis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556433050 ISBN 13: 9781556433054

Publisher: North Atlantic Books,U.S., 2000

Synopsis

This is the first book in a new Anti-Voyages series which aims to subvert the clichés of travel and travel writing. In a world glutted with books extolling foreign lands and intrepid travelers, Against Venice stands alone. Noted intellectual Regis Debray evokes a vivid picture for us in hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek prose of a cultural amusement park, a kind of Euro-Disney for snobs. In this ostentatious sanctuary of the Beautiful, the Artificial, and the Picturesque, the tired senior exec or stockbroker feels rejuvenated, transfigured by the glow of Art; the Tourist, caught up in the festive unreality of the city's "ongoing fancy dress ball," feels free on the very spot where the native inhabitant feels imprisoned. Venice only plays the city and we play at discovering it. And, as the introduction points out, it is not finally Venice itself, but rather this repertoire of poses, temptations, daydreams, and alibis it so easily encourages that is Debray's real target. Kill this "inner Venice," he urges, or it will surely kill you.

About this title

Review:

In his trenchantly written polemic, Debray scorns the tone of elegaic mawkishness in accounts of Venice by the likes of Proust and Morand. His excoriating little pamphlet is a corrective to our self-consciously poetic vapourings about Venice (Ian Thomson The Sunday Times)

He can write brilliantly. Debray's mischievous polemic denounces not only the modern tourist but the so-called sophisticate for swooning over a Venice that is little more than a narcissistic reflection of the viewer's own pretensions. Debray is funny, hugely intelligent, immensely quotable and possibly quite insincere (Nicholas Lezard The Guardian)

Debray's diatribe is witty and elegant ... he fires off his fusillades with great panache, and I relish his unbuttoned aplomb (Richard Cork Modern Painters)

About the Author:

Régis Debray is a French intellectual, journalist, government official and professor. He studied at the Ecole Normale Superieur and became "agrégé de philosophie" in 1965. Debray was a professor of philosophy at the University of Havana, and a friend of Che Guevara as a young man in the 1960s. He later wrote a book entitled Revolution in the Revolution. This book critiqued the tactical and strategic doctrines then prevailing among militant socialist movements in Latin America, and acted as a handbook for guerilla warfare.

When Guevara was captured in Bolivia, 1967, Debray (also in Bolivia at the time) was imprisoned, convicted of having been part of Guevara's guerilla group and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was released in 1970 after an international campaign for his release which included Jean-Paul Sartre and André Malraux. He sought refuge in Chile, where he wrote The Chilean Revolution (1972) after interviews with Salvador Allende.

Debray returned to France in 1973. Following the election of Président François Mitterrand, in 1981, he became an adviser to the Président on foreign affairs. In this capacity he developed a policy that sought to increase France's freedom of action in the world, decrease dependence on the United States, and promote closeness with the former colonies. He was also involved in the development of the government's official ceremonies and recognition of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Until the mid-1990s he held a number of official posts in France. He is the founder of the discipline of médiologie or "mediology", which attempts to scientifically study mass media and power.

About this edition

• Publisher: North Atlantic Books,U.S.
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1556433050
• ISBN 13: 9781556433054
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 100