![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/fugue21/magnifier-left.png)
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/P/1939663326.01._SX180_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... La construcción de la torre de Babelpar Juan Benet
![]() Aucun Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Appartient à la série éditoriale
Juan Benet's penultimate book, The Construction of the Tower of Babel brings together two essays that testify to the multiplicity of the author's interests, both personal and professional.The titular essay is a meditation on Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1563 painting of the Tower of Babel: the first painting in European art history to feature a building as a protagonist. An engineer by trade, Benet brings his knowledge of building construction to bear on Bruegel's creation, examining the archways, pillars, windows and the painter's meticulously depicted chaos at the heart of the edifice's centuries-long execution. An unusual analysis of architectural hubris and the linguistic myth that gave rise to it, Benet's essay builds its own linguistic telescoping structure that could be described as an "architextual" discourse on the madness of the unending project.Also included is "On the Necessity of Treason" (a theme of particular interest to Benet, whose father was shot by Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War, and whose brother was forced to escape to France, exiled for his Republican sympathies). Benet considers the essentially dual nature of the spy and the curious World War II cases of Julius Norke and William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) to conclude that, within the order of the State, the traitor is not only necessary, but welcome.A civil engineer by profession, Spanish writer Juan Benet (1927-93) began writing to pass the long nights of solitude he spent on construction sites in Le n and Asturias. He self-published his first novel, You Will Never Amount to Anything, in 1961. In 1967, he won the Biblioteca Breve Prize for his novel A Meditation. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
![]() GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)808Literature By Topic Rhetoric and anthologiesClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:![]()
Est-ce vous ?Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing. |
Juan Benet (1927-1993) was a Spanish novelist, dramatist, essayist and civil engineer who began writing to pass the long nights alone when he was working on construction projects. It was because he was an engineer that this essay explains why 'The Tower of Babel' is not the simple painting of a Biblical myth that is neatly summarised at Wikipedia.
Well, according to Benet, construction workers don't need to understand each other anyway.
Indeed he goes so far as to say that if Noah's descendants failed to bring the tower's construction to a close at the moment when their language was lost, the blame would lie with personal quarrels and disputes concerning rank. For it could not be said that each individual builder [...] was no longer aware of what must be done.
Through his examination of the tiers, archways, pillars, windows and the strange amphitheatre at the top, Benet makes the case that this is a painting of a doomed building, destined to fall into ruin and to vanish from the face of the earth. The chaos at its heart is architectural hubris and the madness of the original concept. A royal entourage inspects it, but is irrelevant. The subject of this painting is the desolation of the building and its interrupted construction.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/06/04/the-construction-of-the-tower-of-babel-1990-... (