Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook160 pages2 hours
Portrait of a Man Known as Il Condottiere
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Puckish and playful, Georges Perec infused avant-garde and experimental fiction with a wit and wonder that belied the serious concerns and concepts that underpinned it. A prominent member of the OuLiPo, and an abiding influence on fiction writers today, Perec used formal constraints to dazzling effect in such works as A Void—a murder mystery that contains nary an “e”—and Life A User’s Manual, in which an apartment building, systematically canvassed, unfolds secrets and, ultimately offers a reflection on creation, destruction, and the devotion to art.
Before embarking on these experiments, however, Perec tried his hand at a relatively straightforward novel, Portrait of a Man. His first book, it was rejected by publishers when he submitted it in 1960, after which he filed it away. Decades after Perec’s death, David Bellos discovered the manuscript, and through his translation we have a chance to enjoy it in English for the first time. What fans will find here is a thriller that combines themes that would remain prominent in Perec’s later work, such as art forgery, authenticity, and murder, as well as craftsman Gaspard Winckler, who whose namesakes play major roles in Life A User’s Manual and W or The Memory of Childhood.
Engaging and entertaining on its own merits, and gaining additional interest when set in the context of Perec’s career, Portrait of a Man is sure to charm the many fans of this postmodern master.
Before embarking on these experiments, however, Perec tried his hand at a relatively straightforward novel, Portrait of a Man. His first book, it was rejected by publishers when he submitted it in 1960, after which he filed it away. Decades after Perec’s death, David Bellos discovered the manuscript, and through his translation we have a chance to enjoy it in English for the first time. What fans will find here is a thriller that combines themes that would remain prominent in Perec’s later work, such as art forgery, authenticity, and murder, as well as craftsman Gaspard Winckler, who whose namesakes play major roles in Life A User’s Manual and W or The Memory of Childhood.
Engaging and entertaining on its own merits, and gaining additional interest when set in the context of Perec’s career, Portrait of a Man is sure to charm the many fans of this postmodern master.
Unavailable
Author
Georges Perec
Georges Perec, born in Paris in 1936, was a pioneering French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist and essayist. Orphaned from an early age, many of his works deal with absence, loss and identity, often through word play. He later became an eminent member of the experimental Oulipo group. He died in 1982.
Related to Portrait of a Man Known as Il Condottiere
Related ebooks
Bouvard and Pecuchet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn Elegance While Sleeping Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Idea of Perfection: The Poetry and Prose of Paul Valéry; A Bilingual Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Voyage to India Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Honeymoon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Voice Imitator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Antagony Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Partial Disgrace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Interrogation: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Swann's Way Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrove: A Field Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRepetition: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making a Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWitz: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImpressions of Africa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paris Trance: A Romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like a Fading Shadow: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Oblomov Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Hunt for Optimism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeaches Goes It Alone: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Third Reich: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barley Patch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelf-Portrait Abroad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Incompletes Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5On Earth and in Hell: Early Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Beautiful Bus Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Their Heads Are Green And Their Hands Are Blue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alves & Co and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
East of Eden (Original Classic Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lagos Wife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If We Were Villains: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Portrait of a Man Known as Il Condottiere
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
2 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's Georges Perec - author of my very favourite book of all time - so it has to be good, doesn't it? And indeed it is.
I'd read about this novel - Perec's second, but never published in his lifetime - in David Bellos' monumental biography of Perec, so when it finally turned up in print I had to have it. It's taken me a couple of years to get around to reading it. A curious work in two parts (the second is a retelling of the first), it features Gaspard Winckler, also the name of one of the main characters in "Life a User's Manual", though it's not clear if they're one and the same. It concerns a frustrated forger who murders his paymaster. Reputed to be difficult because it's told in the first,second and third persons, I didn't find it so at all. I'm not at risk of giving any plot spoilers because there isn't much of a plot, to be honest. But that doesn't matter. It's an entertaining meditation on creativity and genius, written with Perec's characteristic wit.
By coincidence, I had just read Thomas Bernhard's "Old Masters", also a contemplation of a single portrait and artistic genius in which nothing much happens, and the two worked well as a piece. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A fascinating unpublished early novella by the writer more famous for Life: A User's Manual. It tells the story of Gaspard Winckler, an art forger and his obsession with a failed attempt to create an original painting to match the renaissance master Antonello's Condottiere, better known in English as Portrait of a Man. Winckler tells his story first as a stream of consciousness narration and then by answering questions, as a form of cathartic confession after murdering his patron. It is difficult not to read this at least partially as a metaphor for the novelist's own struggle to create his first work, but also a meditation on the nature of creativity and originality in the arts. Like all of Perec's work the language is playful and entertaining, which creates obvious challenges for the translator.The translation is by David Bellos, who was not only the translator of the best known English versions of much of Perec's other work, but also the writer of a brilliant book on the art of translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything. Bellos had a hand in unearthing the manuscript of this book while researching a biography of Perec, and has added an introduction to this version.