Зарубежная литература - Страница 148

Description

Lord Timon is known by the whole city of Athens as a very generous man. He offers to bail his friend Ventidius out of jail, hires local artists for their talents, and invites his admirers to a feast and offers them gifts. Timon’s closest friend Apemantus tries to warn him that these people are parasites, taking advantage of him. Flavius, Timon’s servant, also tries to warn his master that his finances are in dire straits due to the lavish spending, and that he owes a lot of money. Both worries are dismissed—until creditors that were once considered Timon’s “friends” demand his debts be paid.

Many scholars consider Timon of Athens an unfinished work: plot developments that go nowhere, random character appearances, and other inconsistencies make it feel incomplete, and it was never performed in Shakespeare’s lifetime. If it had been, the production might have been considered too controversial because of its allusion to King James I and his lavish spending and debts.

This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.

Description

In another science-based entry in his Voyages Extraordinaires series, Verne takes us on the journey of Simon Hart, an engineer who poses as an aide to the scientist Dr. Roche. Roche’s whose invention of a world conquering weapon has driven him insane, and as the paranoid doctor rests in a sanatorium, the vicious pirate Karraje kidnaps both him and Hart. Karraje takes them to a secret hideaway in a burned-out island caldera in the Bermudas—but Hart hatches an ingenious escape plan.

Description

Soon after the widowed Lilia Herriton arrives at the dusty Tuscan town of Monteriano with her friend Caroline Abbott, she falls in love with Gino Carella, a handsome—and younger—man. When her overbearing in-laws hear of the engagement, they panic, believing a marriage like that would dishonor their family and the memory of Lilia’s late husband and their child.

Lilia’s brother-in-law, Philip Herriton, rushes to Italy to stop the marriage and “rescue” Lilia from Gino. He soon discovers that he’s too late, and that they’ve already married. Their impulsive decision will have major consequences—not just for the couple itself, but also for Caroline, Philip, and everyone else in their orbit.

Forster was just twenty-six in 1905 when Where Angels Fear to Tread, his first novel, was published. In a contemporary review, The Manchester Guardian called it “almost startlingly original” in its setting and the treatment of its motive, but also wondered if Forster could “could be a little more charitable” in future works. In 1991 it was made into a movie starring Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, and Rubert Graves.

Description

Mrs. Aldwinkle, an English aristocrat of a certain age, has purchased a mansion in the Italian countryside. She wishes to bring a salon of intellectual luminaries into her orbit, and to that end she invites a strange cast of characters to spend time with her in her palazzo: Irene, her young niece; Ms. Thriplow, a governess-turned-novelist; Mr. Calamy, a handsome young man of great privilege and even greater ennui; Mr. Cardan, a worldly gentleman whose main talent seems to be the enjoyment of life; Hovenden, a young motorcar-obsessed lord with a speech impediment; and Mr. Falx, a socialist leader. To this unlikely cast is soon added Mr. Chelifer, an author with an especially florid, overwrought style that is wasted on his day job as editor of The Rabbit Fancier’s Gazette, and the Elvers, a scheming brother who is the guardian of his mentally-challenged sister.

As this unlikely group mingles, they discuss a great many grand topics: love, art, language, life, culture. Yet very early on the reader comes to realize that behind the pompousness of their elaborate discussions lies nothing but vacuity—these characters are a satire of the self-important intellectuals of Huxley’s era.

His skewering of their intellectual barrenness continues as the group moves on to a trip around the surrounding country, in a satire of the Grand Tour tradition. The party brings their English snobbery out in full force as they traipse around Rome, sure of nothing else except in their belief that Italy is culturally superior simply because it’s Italy.

As the vacation winds down, we’re left with a biting lampoon of the elites who suppose themselves to be at the height of art and culture—the kinds of personalities that arise in every generation, sure of their own greatness but unable to actually contribute anything to the world of art and culture that they feel is so important.

Description

The Small House at Allington was originally serialized in Cornhill Magazine between July and December 1862. It is the fifth book in Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire series, being largely set in that fictious county of England. It includes a few of the characters from the earlier books, though largely in very minor roles. It could also be said to be the first of Trollope’s Palliser series, as it introduces Plantagenet Palliser as the heir to the Duke of Omnium.

The major story, however, relates to the inhabitants of the Small House at the manor of Allington. The Small House was once the Dower House of the estate (a household where the widowed mother of the squire might live, away from the Great House). Now living there, however, is Mary Dale, the widow of the squire’s brother, and her two daughters, Isabella (Bell) and Lilian (Lily). The main focus of the novel is on Lily Dale, who is courted by Adolphus Crosbie, a friend of the squire’s nephew. In a matter of a few weeks, Lily falls deeply in love with Crosbie, who quickly proposes to her and is accepted. A few weeks later, however, Crosbie is visiting Courcy Castle and decides an alliance with the Earl’s daughter Alexandrina would be far preferable from a social and monetary point of view. Without speaking to Lily, he abruptly changes his plans and asks Alexandrina to marry him instead. This act of betrayal is devastating to Lily and her family.

This novel, along with the other titles in the Barsetshire series, was turned into a radio play for Radio 4 in the United Kingdom in the late 1990s. The British Prime Minister John Major was recorded in the 1990s as saying that The Small House at Allington was his favorite book.