Título: On Grief and Reason: Essays
Autor: Joseph Brodsky
Sinopse: Joseph Brodsky was a great contrarian and believed, against the received wisdom of our day, that good writing could survive translation. He was right, I think, though you had to wonder when you saw how badly his own work fared in English. But then perhaps the Russians hadn't expelled a great poet so much as exposed us to one of their virulent personality cults. Yet Brodsky's essays are interesting. Composed in a rather heroically determined English, clumsily phrased and idiomatically challenged, they are still inventive and alive. There are suggestive analyses of favorite poems by Hardy, Rilke, and Frost in this book, and a moving meditation on the figure of Marcus Aurelius. Though too often Brodsky goes on at self-indulgent length, he usually recaptures our attention with a characteristic aside: "The fact that we are livingdoes not mean we are not sick." From Publishers Weekly: "Art, especially literature, is "a form of moral insurance" that, if widely disseminated, could counteract the worst impulses of societies and governments, declares Brodsky in his eloquent 1987 Nobel lecture. In another essay, "An Immodest Proposal," the eminent poet and essayist suggests ways to make poetry much more available to the public. In an open letter to Czech president Vaclav Havel, Brodsky (who emigrated from Russia to the U.S. in 1972 after spending two years in prison as a dissident) looks squarely at the moral and economic anarchy of post-communist eastern Europe. This miscellany of reprinted essays and speeches reveals an elegant writer and incisive thinker. "Collector's Item" segues from spy novels, to a psychological profile of Cambridge spy Kim Philby, secret agent for Moscow, to an analysis of how espionage becomes a mutually destructive game. Elsewhere Brodsky champions Thomas Hardy as a modern poet of existential truths and follows Rainer Maria Rilke's poetic journey to the netherworld of Orpheus. Other pieces deal with nostalgia, lessons of history, a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Robert Frost's poetry and Roman emperor/poet Marcus Aurelius's Stoic Meditations."
Contexto da obra
Quando a classificação é mais ampla, o contexto do livro costuma depender ainda mais de autoria, tema e edição. “On Grief and Reason: Essays”, de Joseph Brodsky, publicado pela editora Farrar, Straus and Giroux, em 1997 e com 504 páginas, integra a categoria Livros Variados. Por isso, autoria, edição e tema acabam tendo ainda mais peso na forma de apresentar o livro.
Editora: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Páginas: 504
Ano: 1997
Edição:
Linguagem: inglês
ISBN: 0374525099
ISBN13: 9780374525095
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora Farrar, Straus and Giroux costumam oferecer uma experiência de leitura que combina profundidade intelectual com uma escrita cuidadosamente elaborada, transitando entre ensaios, memórias e ficção literária. O catálogo apresenta obras que exploram temas como a complexidade das relações humanas, a busca por sentido em contextos históricos e sociais, e reflexões filosóficas sobre a maturidade e a condição humana. A narrativa varia entre o mais ensaístico e o mais narrativo, com textos que podem ser densos e contemplativos, como poemas extensos e meditações filosóficas, ou tensos e dramáticos, como romances que abordam conflitos pessoais e sociais. Em muitos casos, os livros propõem um diálogo entre passado e presente, revelando o impacto da história na vida individual e coletiva.
