Less Than One: Selected Essays
A Literary Criticism, Biography, Russian Literature book. Ethics based on this faultily quoted verse have changed nothing in post-Gandhi India, save the color of its administration. From...
Essayist and poet Joseph Brodsky was one of the most penetrating voices of the twentieth century. This prize-winning collection of his diverse essays includes uniquely powerful appreciations of great writers: on Dostoevsky and the development of Russian prose, on Auden and Akhmatova, Cavafy, Montale and Mandelstam. These are contrasted with his reflections on larger themes of tyranny and evil, and subtle evocations of his childhood in Leningrad. Brodsky's insightful appreciation of the intricacies of language, culture and identity connect these works, revealing his remarkable gifts as a prose writer.
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- Filetype: PDF
- Pages: 512 pages
- ISBN: 9780141196510 / 141196513
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More About Less Than One: Selected Essays
The meaning of these lines is anything but passive for it suggests that evil can be made absurd through excess; it suggests rendering evil absurd through dwarfing its demands with the volume of your compliance, which devalues the harm. This sort of thing puts a victim into a very active position, into the position of a mental aggressor. The victory that is possible here is not a moral but an existential one. Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One: Selected Essays // Because every book of art, be it a poem or a cupola, is understandably a self-portrait of its author, we won't strain ourselves too hard trying to distinguish between the author's persona and the poem's lyrical hero. As a rule, such distinctions are quite meaningless, if only because a lyrical hero is invariably an author's self-projection. Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One: Selected Essays // The fact that the world today is what it is suggests, to say the least, that this concept is far from being cherished universally. The reasons for its unpopularity are twofold. First, what is required for this concept to be put into effect is a margin of democracy. This is precisely what 86 percent of the globe lacks. Second, the common sense that tells a victim that his only gain in turning the other cheek and not responding in kind yields, at best, a moral victory, i.e., quite immaterial. The natural reluctance to expose yet another part of your body...
What a challenging read. There is no doubt that he is a good writer, just heavy to read and digest, especially as I picked this up right before I gave birth. Some of the essays were about poets I never heard of, so of course, it was hard to relate, know what he was talking about and it went over my head. I appreciated his interpretation... Kuinka yhteen kirjoitukseen mahtuukin mit kaunein muistokirjoitus omille vanhemmille ja totalitrisen yhteiskunnan arjen ja tuhoisan voiman kuvaus. Some of the essays on this book are wonderful. Some I found a little too much for me. I love poetry, and everything about it, but I don't really like it turned inside out, no matter how much passion the essayist will put into it. I think it is the same as a song, it should be read, not so much analyzed, specially if it is a poem I haven't...
