Theodore Dreiser
Sister Carrie
En anglais – When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. The tale of Carrie Meeber’s rise to stardom in the theatre and George Hurstwood’s slow decline captures the twin poles of exuberance and exhaustion in modern city life as never before. The premier example of American naturalism, Dreiser’s remarkable first novel has deeply influenced such key writers as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, and Joyce Carol Oates. This edition uses the 1900 text, which is regarded as the author’s final version.
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Leaves of grass and selected prose
En anglais – … » I’ve been reading bits and pieces of this mammoth collection for decades. Though I haven’t finished every last page, I’ve completed the lion’s share of the famous sections and will keep whittling away on the rest. » …
Adam Runaway
En Anglais – « It is 1721 and young Adam Hanaway, devastated by his father’s sudden death, leaves England to seek his fortune in Lisbon, where his uncle is a successful merchant. But almost nothing turns out as Adam planned. His family’s welcome is cool, and Adam’s rise to the top is thwarted by Bartolomeu Gomes, his uncle’s treacherous clerk. » « As Adam attempts to overcome these obstacles he is handicapped by a certain personal trait. Not, he insists, that he is a coward exactly, but he is inclined to boldly put himself in dangerous situations and then at the last minute run away from them – hence the nickname given to him by friends who had observed this failing once too often. » « While Adam’s mother and sisters wait in England for him to rescue them from poverty, Adam is preoccupied with more compelling women: the beautiful, older half-Portuguese lady Maria Beatriz Hutchinson; the spoiled, rich Gabriella Lowther; and his charming young cousin Nancy. But Adam commits a social faux pas so severe he forever ruins his chances for making a good match – yet no one dares tell him what he has done wrong! » « Adam certainly has a lot to learn. …
The black country
En Anglais – When members of a prominent family disappear from a coal-mining village—and a human eyeball is discovered in a bird’s nest—the local constable sends for help from Scotland Yard’s new Murder Squad. Fresh off the grisly 1889 murders of The Yard, Inspector Walter Day and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith respond, but they have no idea what they’re about to get into. The villagers have intense, intertwined histories. Everybody bears a secret. Superstitions abound. And the village itself is slowly sinking into the mines beneath it. Not even the arrival of forensics pioneer Dr. Bernard Kingsley seems to help. In fact, the more the three of them investigate, the more they realize they may never be allowed to leave . . . .
Couverture reliée par l’éditeur – Le narrateur est un personnage historique : Ovide. On peut considérer que c’est un écrit apocryphe. Il couvre les derniers huit ans de sa vie, vécus à Tomis, ancienne colonie romaine au pays des Gètes. Le roman adopte la forme d’un journal intime, divisé en huit chapitres (chacun d’eux correspondant à un an d’exil) qui révèlent les étapes d’une « maturation » progressive, à savoir, une conversion. L’univers du roman s’articule autour d’un axe primordial dont les deux pôles sont la société de Rome d’une part, le monde des Daces d’autre part. Cette dichotomie est génératrice d’une riche gamme de métaphores, mais peut-être son attribut le plus important est la manière dont les deux mondes se construisent, et leur importance en tant que « chronotopes » dans l’économie du récit. Le périple spirituel d’Ovide se dénoue entre les deux univers-symboles, dont les caractères antagonistes s’entretissent au cours d’un chiasme pour resurgir à la fin de la narration radicalement métamorphosés.