Título: A Meaningful Life (NYRB Classics)
Autor: L.J Davis
Sinopse: L.J. Davis’s 1971 novel, A Meaningful Life, is a blistering black comedy about the American quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New York City in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis’s novel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he finds a job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of his marriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansion in a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention his wife’s will, sinks his every penny into buying it. He quits his job, moves in, and spends day and night on demolition and construction. At last he has a mission: he will dig up the lost history of his house; he will restore it to its past grandeur. He will make good on everything that’s gone wrong with his life, and he will even murder to do it. Praise The story, delivered with terrific brio, proceeds as a phantasmagoria of urban decay and heightened obsession. It is also extremely funny if you can put politically correct scruples to the side — which should be easy enough as the true butt of the novel is Lowell himself. —Katherine Powers, The Boston Globe Stultified by his job (editing a plumbing magazine) and his mind—numbing marriage (’a cross between Long Day’s Journey into Night and Father Knows Best’), frustrated novelist Lowell Lake welcomes a new obsession: renovating a monstrously dilapidated mansion in a Brooklyn slum. What follows, in L.J. Davis’s deadpan 1971 novel A Meaningful Life, reissued by NYRB Classics, is pure chaos, as Lowell confronts a cast of urban squatters, in some of the most brilliant comic turns this side of Alice in Wonderland. A cathartic read for urban pioneers. — O, The Oprah Magazine Here’s a real rediscovery...This strange comic masterwork is compared to the work of Kingsley Amis in Jonathan Lethem’s new introduction. That’s almost right, but the feel is darker, and there’s a touch of Patricia Highsmith too; it’s all about gentrification, and, ultimately, madness. — The Los Angeles Times Davis is seen by some as a kind of Evelyn Waugh of the American urban crisis. — The Washington Post ...[O]ne of the strangest novels I have ever read: a crazed parable in which the protagonist, Lowell Lake, and his marriage undergo a constantly regenerating process of mental and physical disintegration. Quite mad, it can be read poolside, roadside or mountainside: wherever you are, you’ll be Lake-side. —Geoff Dyer, The Guardian
Contexto da obra
Quando a classificação é mais ampla, o contexto do livro costuma depender ainda mais de autoria, tema e edição. “A Meaningful Life (NYRB Classics)”, de L.J Davis, publicado pela editora NYRB Classics, em 2009 e com 232 páginas, integra a categoria Livros Variados. Por isso, autoria, edição e tema acabam tendo ainda mais peso na forma de apresentar o livro.
Editora: NYRB Classics
Páginas: 232
Ano: 2009
Edição:
Linguagem: pt_BR
ISBN:
ISBN13: 9781590173008
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora NYRB Classics convidam o leitor a uma imersão em narrativas que transitam entre o histórico, o literário e o filosófico, com uma atenção especial a obras que exploram tensões morais e sociais profundas. O catálogo revela uma predileção por textos que combinam densidade intelectual com uma prosa muitas vezes lírica e precisa, abordando desde relatos de períodos sombrios da história até ficções que desafiam convenções narrativas. Há um equilíbrio entre obras mais narrativas, como contos e romances que exploram relações humanas e conflitos íntimos, e textos mais ensaísticos ou críticos que dialogam com questões filosóficas e culturais. A experiência de leitura tende a ser marcada por um tom sóbrio, por vezes melancólico, que convida à reflexão sobre temas como poder, identidade e memória.
