Recent Posts - page 40
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Analysis of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate
Mexican writer Laura Esquivel (1950– ) wrote Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies as an extraordinary tale of the unique relationship between the magic of love and the sensuality of food…. Read More ›
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Analysis of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard
A historical novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896–1957), The Leopard was one of the most successful literary works of 20th-century European literature. The plot is straightforward: In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi and his forces have landed in Marsala (Sicily) to… Read More ›
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Analysis of Peter Weiss’s Leavetaking
The two novels Peter Weiss (1916–82) wrote relatively early in his career, Leavetaking and Vanishing Point (Fluchtpunkt, 1962) are ambitious and unsettling works of prose fiction, styled, in terms of genre, in a Proustian manner of fictionalized autobiography, though charged… Read More ›
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Analysis of Park Kyongni’s Land
Land tells an epic saga of the Choi family’s ups and downs during the turbulent period of modern Korean history from 1897 to 1945. The setting ranges from Pyongsa-ri, Hadong, a typical farming village in the southern region of South… Read More ›
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Analysis of André Gide’s Lafcadio’s Adventures
The prodigious French Nobel laureate André Gide (1869–1951) originally published Lafcadio’s Adventures in La Nouvelle Revue Française in four installments, from January through April 1914; it appeared as a book later the same year. In 1933 Gide adapted it for… Read More ›
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Analysis of Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro
Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki (1867–1916) is one of the great classics of Japanese literature. A translation of the title produces a wide range of meanings: “heart,” “soul,” “spirit,” “feelings,” and “the heart of things.” Kokoro is divided into three parts:… Read More ›
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Analysis of François Mauriac’s A Knot of Vipers
Considered by many to be the best novel by France’s François Mauriac (1885–1970), A Knot of Vipers contains those recurring central themes of alienation, error, and delusion, or simply “sin,” seen in most of his stories. The work also reveals… Read More ›
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Analysis of Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen
Kitchen, the debut novel by Banana Yoshimoto (1964– ), was a phenomenal success, catapulting the young author into instant celebrity status in her native Japan. The novel quickly won three literary prizes: Kaien magazine’s New Writer’s Prize, the Umitsubame first… Read More ›
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Analysis of Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman
The novel Kiss of the Spider Woman by Argentina’s Manuel Puig (1932–90) has become the author’s most popular work due in large part to its successful screen adaptation in 1985. Kiss of the Spider Woman depicts the evolving relationship between… Read More ›
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Analysis of Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World
The Kingdom of This World, the second novel by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier (1904–80), deals with the events surrounding the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). The novel is divided into four sections, each of which chronicles an important stage in the country’s… Read More ›
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Analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s King, Queen, Knave
Originally published in Russian in 1928 under the penname Sirin, King, Queen, Knave is the second novel by famed author Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977). The work was translated into English in 1968 after its publication in Germany. Unlike his first novel,… Read More ›
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Analysis of Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night
The 1932 publication of the cynical and darkly comic Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) sent immediate shock waves into a French literary world still reeling from the social and artistic disruptions of World War… Read More ›
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Analysis of Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers
The series of four biblical novels by renowned German author Thomas Mann (1875–1955) chronicles the ancient history of the Jews and evolves as a refutation of prolific racist mythmaking during the Nazi era. Mann wrote the tetralogy over a 16-year… Read More ›
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Analysis of Alain Robbergrillet’s Jealousy
Born in Brest, France, into a family with a strong background in the sciences, Alain Robbergrillet (1922–2008) was an agricultural engineer by training but became one of the leading exponents of what was known as the nouveau roman, or “new… Read More ›
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Analysis of Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before
The third novel by Italian author Umberto Eco (1932–2016), The Island of the Day Before is another extended meditation on the subjective nature of reality that demonstrates the deceptive nature of all signs and metaphors. Eco presents his historical romance… Read More ›
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Analysis of Adolfo Bioy Casares’s The Invention of Morel
Inspired by his fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, Adolfo Bioy Casares’s novel The Invention of Morel is on one level a stoic evocation of the pains and frustrations of romantic love and on another level a profound metaphysical… Read More ›
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Analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Intimacy
The novel Nausea (Le nausée, 1938) and the collection of short stories and novellas The Wall (Le mur, 1939), which includes Intimacy, brought the French author Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) immediate recognition and success as a writer and philosopher. Previously, he… Read More ›
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Analysis of Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters
The Interpreters is the first of two novels written by the prominent Nigerian intellectual Wole Soyinka (1934– ). He is best known for his prolific career as a playwright, already well established at the time of the publication of The… Read More ›
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Analysis of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time
The reclusive French writer Marcel Proust, now considered by many scholars as the greatest novelist of the 20th century, labored for more than 14 years and died while still adding to what would eventually be a seven-volume masterpiece. The novel… Read More ›
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Analysis of Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Infante’s Inferno
Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s book “Infante’s Inferno” (1984) is a masterfully crafted, chronological account of a young man’s journey into adulthood in prerevolutionary Havana, Cuba. The author vividly depicts both the triumphant and disastrous aspects of his experiences, interweaving his trademark… Read More ›
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