Savage Reprisals – Bleak House, Madam Bovary, Buddenbrooks - Softcover

Gay, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393051188 ISBN 13: 9780393051186

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002

Synopsis

Focusing on three literary classics - Charles Dickens's "Bleak House" (1853); Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" (1857); and Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks" (1901) - Peter Gay, a cultural historian, demonstrates that there is more than one way to read a novel. Typically readers believe that fiction, especially those that dominated the Western culture of the 19th century, is based on historical truth. Gay uses his examples to show that novels take their own path to reality. He discovers, by exploring their world, craftsmanship and their minds, that all three novelist share one overriding quality - a resentment and rage against the society that sustains the novel itself.

About this title

Review:

"The great strength of these essays is that they are truly a pleasure to read: lucid, accessible, sharp, entertaining and witty, written in crisp, inviting prose."

Peter Gay, the prominent cultural historian, here does a skillful turn as a literary critic....Reading "Savage Reprisals" is like sitting in a college lecture hall and listening to a seasoned professor perform scintillating riffs on masterworks and their contexts. --David Reynolds"

A provocative triptych of essays....Written in elegant prose, and wearing its extensive scholarship lightly...continually stimulating.

The great strength of these essays is that they are truly a pleasure to read: lucid, accessible, sharp, entertaining and witty, written in crisp, inviting prose.--Merle Rubin

About the Author:

Peter Gay is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the National Book Award winner The Enlightenment, the best-selling Weimar Culture, and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0393051188
• ISBN 13: 9780393051186
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192