Adolphe

Constant, Benjamin

ISBN 10: 0140441344 / ISBN 13: 9780140441345

Published by Penguin Books, 1980

Former library book; Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0140441344I5N10

Synopsis:

Adolphe is a privileged and refined young man, bored by the stupidity he perceives in the world around him. After a number of meaningless conquests, he at last encounters Ellenore, a beautiful and passionate older woman. Adolphe is enraptured and gradually wears down her resistance to his declarations of love. But as they embark on an intense and tortured affair, Ellenore gives way to a flood of emotion that only serves to repel her younger lover - yet he cannot bring himself to leave her and his procrastination can only bring tragedy. Partly inspired by Constant's own stormy affair with Madame de Staël, Adolphe (1816) is a penetrating psychological depiction of love that plumbs the depths of the passions, motives and inconsistencies of the human character.

Review: "I wanted them all, even those I'd already read."
--Ron Rosenbaum, "The New York Observer"

"Small wonders."
--"Time Out London"

"""[F]irst-rate...astutely selected and attractively packaged...indisputably great works."
--Adam Begley, "The New York Observer"

"I've always been haunted by Bartleby, the proto-slacker. But it's the handsomely minimalist cover of the Melville House edition that gets me here, one of many in the small publisher's fine 'Art of the Novella' series."
--"The New Yorker"

"The Art of the Novella series is sort of an anti-Kindle. What these singular, distinctive titles celebrate is book-ness. They're slim enough to be portable but showy enough to be conspicuously consumed--tiny little objects that demand to be loved for the commodities they are."
--KQED (NPR San Francisco)

"Some like it short, and if you're one of them, Melville House, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, has a line of books for you... elegant-looking paperback editions ...a good read in a small package."
--"The Wall Street Journal"

Bibliographic Details

Title: Adolphe
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication Date: 1980
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Fair
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket