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Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader
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About This Book
Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader is Vivian Gornick's celebration of passionate reading, of returning again and again to the books that have shaped her at crucial points in her life. In nine essays that traverse literary criticism, memoir, and biography, one of our most celebrated critics writes about the importance of reading--and re-reading--as life progresses. Gornick finds herself in contradictory characters within D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, assesses womanhood in Colette's The Vagabond and The Shackle, and considers the veracity of memory in Marguerite Duras's The Lover. She revisits Great War novels by J. L. Carr and Pat Barker, uncovers the psychological complexity of Elizabeth Bowen's prose, and soaks in Natalia Ginzburg, "a writer whose work has often made me love life more." After adopting two cats, whose erratic behavior she finds vexing, she discovers Doris Lessing's Particularly Cats. Guided by Gornick's trademark verve and insight, Unfinished Business is a masterful appreciation of literature's power to illuminate our lives from a peerless writer and thinker who "still read[s] to feel the power of Life with a capital L."
Reviews
"The insights in this rich work will be appreciated by Gornick fans and bibliophiles alike."
"If there's something both simplistic and almost academic-seeming in that prescription for greater enlightenment, Gornick's lively, personable book is evidence of the pleasure that can result from the endeavor."
"a chronicle of the protean perceptions and interpretations drawn from among the books that have, for one reason or another, stayed with Gornick through the passage of decades."
"Gornick recognizes that in that initial encounter, one might not be emotionally ready to appreciate a work fully, but with each rereading will recognize a new literary element or better understand a particular protagonist no matter how many times the book has been perused before ..."
"Nonetheless, for readers of good and important literature, this short book can be savored ..."
"The author reads more deeply and keenly than most, with perceptions amplified by the perspective of her 84 years ..."
"Chronic rereaders of the author's essays, criticism, biographies, and memoirs will recognize in her spare and elegant new book, Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader, a familiar commitment to class consciousness, cultural politics, gender, and close reading — not only of literature, but of daily human relationships ..."
"The American romance with communism was a failure."
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