- Paperback: 250 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; New edition edition (Dec 9 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0520207076
- ISBN-13: 978-0520207073
- Product Dimensions: 27.7 x 21.6 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 771 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,405,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
This collaborative nouveau roman about a woman's abduction features reproductions of 77 paintings by Magritte.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Robbe-Grillet, one of the creators of the nouveau roman, has interpolated 77 paintings of the surrealist Rene Magritte into this imaginative, unusual detective story. On a superficial level, the work concerns a beautiful young virgin who is abducted, taken to a canning factory, raped with a baluster, and drowned. Though the paintings do not correspond directly to the story, they become metaphors for aspects of the author's themes of play, eroticism, and subversion. Robbe-Grillet allows the reader to become involved in the creation of the story by searching for analogies. Of great interest is the essay by translator Stoltzfus, "The Elusive Heroine," which enriches the reader's understanding of the symbolism used. Also useful is an appendix delineating the novel's plot. Combining interpretation with the novel itself makes this work much more accessible to nonspecialists. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries.
Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
How could this possibly go wrong?,
By alaska (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: La Belle Captive: A Novel (Paperback)
Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the greatest 20th century writers, and arguably the most important living one, teamed up with the paintings of Rene Magritte, another superlative figure in 20th century art. How could this possibly go wrong? For starters, the translation is not by Richard Howard, who translated The Voyeur, Jealousy, and basically all of Robbe-Grillet's greatest works. No other translator has ever achieved the precision, polish and perfection of Howard's efforts, which have the effect of making even Robbe-Grillet's most Gothic passages seem incomparably elegant.The other glaring problem with the book is the quality of the painting reproductions. Printed in low-detail black and white, they function schematically as narrative signposts, but convey little beauty in their own right. Having viewed almost all the original paintings, I would say that even full-color glossy reproductions generally fail to convey their surprising sensuousness, and that the reproductions in this book fail miserably. They're just plain ugly. This is not a bad book, by any means, but it does fall very far short of what it might have been.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
How could this possibly go wrong?,
By alaska - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: La Belle Captive: A Novel (Paperback)
Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the greatest 20th century writers, and arguably the most important living one, teamed up with the paintings of Rene Magritte, another superlative figure in 20th century art. How could this possibly go wrong? For starters, the translation is not by Richard Howard, who translated The Voyeur, Jealousy, and basically all of Robbe-Grillet's greatest works. No other translator has ever achieved the precision, polish and perfection of Howard's efforts, which have the effect of making even Robbe-Grillet's most Gothic passages seem incomparably elegant.The other glaring problem with the book is the quality of the painting reproductions. Printed in low-detail black and white, they function schematically as narrative signposts, but convey little beauty in their own right. Having viewed almost all the original paintings, I would say that even full-color glossy reproductions generally fail to convey their surprising sensuousness, and that the reproductions in this book fail miserably. They're just plain ugly. This is not a bad book, by any means, but it does fall very far short of what it might have been.
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is the French origninal NOT a translation.,
By Ghost(Ghost(M)) - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: LA Belle Captive (Paperback)
This is not a review but a comment about the other review (I know one's not supposed to do that, but I can't post comments, and what I want to say needs to be said).The review I'm talking about is the one entitled "How could this possibly go wrong?" posted by "alaska". He goes on and on about the translation, but this page is for the French original! (La Belle Captive (French Edition), ISBN 068654742X .) "Alaska"'s review is entirely appopriate on the Stoltzfus's English-translation page, but here it is absurd. To be fair, it may not be the reviewer's fault -- because of one of Amazon's strangest and most noxious customs of agglomerating reviews posted to different products into a single pile of what, when used that way, amounts to nonsense. So perhaps it's Amazon rather than "alaska", but please be aware of the fact that "alaska"'s review is written for an item other than what is sold on this page and is entirely irrelevant in the current context. |
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