Hell and Back: Reflections on Writers and Writing from Dante to Rushdie

by Tim Parks

Overview

In this brilliant collection of essays, Tim Parks, a celebrated novelist and master of the essay form, offers a wide range of wonderfully challenging and always provocative reflections on literature and the art of writing. Parks turns his attention to classic authors such as Dante, Leopardi, Borges, Beckett, and Christina Stead; contemporary writers including Vikram Seth and Salman Rushdie; and the late W. G. Sebald and José Saramago, along with a dozen others. The lead essay on Dante sets the tone for the entire collection: erudite, contemplative, witty, and meticulous, it constantly offers new insights into The Inferno, that most celebrated of all poems. In Hell and Back, Tim Parks reminds us just how exciting the essay form can be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628720068
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	02/07/2012
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	396 KB

About the Author

Tim Parks is the author of more than twenty novels and works of nonfiction. His novels include Europa, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent work of nonfiction is Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo. His essays have appeared regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, for which he blogs. He lives in Milan, Italy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Hell and Back Dante 1

The Universal Gentleman Borges 23

Here Comes Salman Rushdie 45

Surviving Giacomo Leopardi 61

The Hunter Sebald 81

Different Worlds 95

Sentimental Education Seth 115

A Chorus of Cruelty Verga 131

Voltaire's Coconuts Buruma 149

Literary Trieste Svevo, Joyce, Saba 167

Party Going Green 179

The Enchanted Fort Buzzati 193

In the Locked Ward Neugeboren 201

Fascist Work Sironi 211

Sightgeist Saramago 229

A Prisoner's Dream Montale 243

Unlocking the Mind's Manacles Bateson and Ugazio 261

Christina Stead: Our Luck Stead 285

Writerly Rancour 305

References 321

Editorial Reviews

Parks is in his element. . . . It’s a pleasure to read his pith-and-vinegar summaries of these authors’ lives. One can’t wait to go out and buy or reread the books he praises.

Washington Times

Intriguing . . . erudite . . . Parks rewardingly finds himself returning often to the role of politics in art.

Boston Globe

[Tim Parks is] one of the most gifted writers of his generation.

Jonathan Yardley