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Chargement... Caprice (1917)par Ronald Firbank
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. "There she sits all day, reading Russian novels. Talk of gloom!" So says Mr. Smee of his wife, Mrs. Smee, in Firbank's Caprice, which is here to dispel any such gloom with its campy and satirical take on London's theatre scene in the early twentieth century. A modernist contemporary of Woolf and Joyce, Firbank wrote Caprice mostly in zany dialogue, quickly jumping from one scene to the next as if dubious of the reader's attention span. Miss Sally Sinquier, daughter of a respectable provincial clergyman, sneaks off to London with some family heirlooms and a grandiose ambition to be an actress. Careless of an intriguing world about her, she falls in with a theatre crowd who both help and exploit her. She rejects the suggestion to start with small roles... I shall play Juliet. I shall have a season.... and throws her ill-gotten money into financing a production of Romeo and Juliet. Improbably it opens with great success, only for Miss Sinquier to fall through a stage trap door to her death the following day. C'est la vie, eh? My dear, I once was thought to be a very pretty woman... All I can do now is to urge my remains. On the basis of this book, I feel confident saying that Firbank's family tree obviously leads to early Evelyn Waugh, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Muriel Spark: extreme minimalism, a high dose of dialogue, and far greater attention to sentences than to the tropes of realism (character, setting, etc...). I imagine this would be a great litmus test for those who claim that they value literature as literature rather than literature as cod philosophy, because it has many characteristics of modernism (the aforementioned minimalism demands a lot from the reader; if you're not paying attention from line to line, you'll get completely lost)--but it avoids the usual ideas of the modernists (nothing here about the ineradicable absurdity of existence, no ultra-individualism, no epatering of the bourgeoisie). I'm not sure I enjoyed reading it at the time, but in hindsight I do enjoy it, and I'm looking forward to more. It's funny, it's gleefully artificial, and it's completely uninterested in all the things that serious literature is meant to be about (other than linguistic playfulness), and, quite frankly, that makes me very happy. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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Sarah Sinquier, living with her father and mother, a cathedral canon and his wife, in a town bursting with churches, is champing at the bit.She has a dream: the stage. Her dramatic sense is certainly acute. Shall she simply recite, as her father suggests? Or does life hold more? Throwing off caution, and a few choice treasures into the folds of her cloak for succour, she slips out one misty night for London, City of Love.Thence follow the struggles of an ing nue to gain the notice of the denizens of the theatre, who are themselves vulnerable votaries of fame. Gossip, parties, the Caf Royal - the right connection may raise its head at any time. Finally the boards heed her call, and Sarah's caprice is made good. Surely her name is now destined to be known? But the hand of fate moves unexpectedly. . .Caprice, first published in 1917, was Ronald Firbank's third novel. His much-vaunted eccentric concision is here at a high point, as is his exotic treatment of character and breathless conversational camp. These thespian exploits which delight in suggestions of scandal and expose them with audacious wit are the perfect Firbank concern. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)823.912Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Apparently, Firbank’s novels are characterized by a heavy emphasis on dialogue. I’ve always appreciated this quality in Agatha Christie’s novels. Sadly, Firbank is no Christie. A century later, most readers will not have enough context to easily make sense of the dialogue. However, I’m not sure readers of a century ago would have had enough context either, unless they moved in the same social circle as Firbank. Maybe that was the point. ( )