Items related to Adultery And Other Diversions
Synopsis
Drawing on anecdote, autobiography, and an extraordinary range of reading, novelist Tim Parks has fused together essay and narrative to create a beguillingly new reading experience, at once charming, gripping and intellectuarlly mind-blowing. Whether he is exploring ghosts or First World Ware heroes, Indian gods or Verona Football Club, adultery or the EC, each piece moves with masterful assurance towards those moments of illumination when finally we appreciate, if only fleetingly, the relationship between our most intimate experiences and the larger world of ideas, and in so doing grasp the principles that underlie our modern way of life.
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Review
This is a collection of pieces which lie somewhere between essays and narratives. The first is called "Adultery". It tells the story of the author's friend and squash partner who, after nine years of marriage, has an affair. The man is transformed by the romance of this new encounter. The writer feels its reverberations in his own life: what would happen if he had an affair? How can a marriage possibly remain exciting? His friend is risking everything, and for what? This is the starting point for Parks' journey of enquiry which takes in, amongst other areas, "Fidelity", "Maturity", "Europe", "Glory" and "Charity". He takes his subjects, which can sound dry, and spins them into a series of fascinating expositions which draw on personal, philosophical and cultural examples. Though he has a massive frame of reference, he doesn't wield his knowledge with bombastic authority. He is not interested in knowledge but in understanding experience, and when he calls in Wittgenstein or Shakespeare, they provide useful connecting tissue only where relevant to the issues in his own life. He teaches without didacticism and entertains while revealing truth. The book is funny, unpretentious and compelling, and combines the gravitas of philosophy with the thrill of good gossip. --Hannah Griffiths
Review
Frankly, the best British author working today. --Joseph Brodsky
His essays are a brilliant mixture of the selfish and the universal, the mundane and the profound. . . . This is a beautifully written book, profound, witty, and satisfying by turns.
Tim Parks's outstanding new collection is an elegant demonstration of the freedom and power of the essay form . . . [and] ranks among the most artful of seductions.
He is one of those writers who really does his best work when he lets his mind go wandering.
Tim Parks s outstanding new collection is an elegant demonstration of the freedom and power of the essay form . . . [and] ranks among the most artful of seductions.
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- PublisherVintage
- Publication date1999
- ISBN 10 0099274841
- ISBN 13 9780099274841
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages192
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