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Product Identifiers
PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
ISBN-100307262863
ISBN-139780307262868
eBay Product ID (ePID)45982475
Product Key Features
Book TitleTemple of Texts
Number of Pages432 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2006
TopicAuthorship, General, Essays, Books & Reading
GenreLiterary Criticism, Language Arts & Disciplines, Literary Collections
AuthorWilliam Gass
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.4 in
Item Weight21.2 Oz
Item Length8.7 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2005-045140
TitleLeadingA
Dewey Edition22
Dewey Decimal808
Edition DescriptionAnnotated edition
Table Of ContentAcknowledgments To a Young Friend Charged with Possession of the Classics Influence A Temple of Texts: Fifty Literary Pillars The Blessed Company,The Book of Prefaces Erasmus,The Praise of Folly Anonymous,A Thousand and One Nights François Rabelais,Gargantua and Pantagruel Robert Burton,The Anatomy of Melancholy Gertrude Stein,Three Lives Flann O'Brien,At Swim-Two-Birds Ernesto Sabato,On Heroes and Tombs A Defense of the Book William Gaddis, And His Goddamn Books Elias Canetti,The Tongue Set Free John Hawkes,Humors of Blood & Skin Robert Coover,The Public Burning Gabriel García Márquez,Chronicle of a Death Foretold Stanley Elkin, Open on the Sabbath The Sentence Seeks Its Form Rainer Maria Rilke,Auguste Rodin Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke and the Requiem Sacred Texts Spectacles Evil
SynopsisFrom one of the most admired essayists and novelists at work today: a new collection of essays-his first sinceTests of Time, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. These twenty-five essays speak to the nature and value of writing and to the books that result from a deep commitment to the word. Here is Gass on Rilke and Gertrude Stein; on friends such as Stanley Elkin, Robert Coover, and William Gaddis; and on a company of "healthy dissidents," among them Rabelais, Elias Canetti, John Hawkes, and Gabriel García Márquez. In the title essay, Gass offers an annotated list of the fifty books that have most influenced his thinking and his work and writes about his first reaction to reading each. Among the books: Ludwig Wittgenstein'sTractatus Logico-Philosophicus("A lightning bolt," Gass writes. "Philosophy was not dead after all. Philosophical ambitions were not extinguished. Philosophical beauty had not fled prose.") . . . Ben Jonson'sThe Alchemist("A man after my own heart. He is capable of the simplest lyrical stroke, as bold and direct as a line by Matisse, but he can be complex in a manner that could cast Nabokov in the shade . . . Shakespeare may have been smarter, but he did not know as much.") . . . Gustave Flaubert's letters ("Here I learned-and learned-and learned.") And after reading Malory'sLe Morte d'Arthur, Gass writes "I began to eat books like an alien worm." In the concluding essay, "Evil," Gass enlarges upon the themes of artistic quality and cultural values that are central to the books he has considered, many of which seek to reveal the worst in people while admiring what they do best. As Gass writes, "The true alchemists do not change lead into gold, they change the world into words." A Temple of Textsis Gass at his most alchemical., From one of the most admired essayists and novelists at work today: a new collection of essays-- his first since "Tests of Time," winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. These twenty-five essays speak to the nature and value of writing and to the books that result from a deep commitment to the word. Here is Gass on Rilke and Gertrude Stein; on friends such as Stanley Elkin, Robert Coover, and William Gaddis; and on a company of " healthy dissidents, " among them Rabelais, Elias Canetti, John Hawkes, and Gabriel Garci a Ma rquez. In the title essay, Gass offers an annotated list of the fifty books that have most influenced his thinking and his work and writes about his first reaction to reading each. Among the books: Ludwig Wittgenstein' s "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (" A lightning bolt, " Gass writes. " Philosophy was not dead after all. Philosophical ambitions were not extinguished. Philosophical beauty had not fled prose." ) . . . Ben Jonson' s "The Alchemist" (" A man after my own heart. He is capable of the simplest lyrical stroke, as bold and direct as a line by Matisse, but he can be complex in a manner that could cast Nabokov in the shade . . . Shakespeare may have been smarter, but he did not know as much." ) . . . Gustave Flaubert' s letters (" Here I learned-- and learned-- and learned." ) And after reading Malory' s "Le Morte d' Arthur," Gass writes " I began to eat books like an alien worm." In the concluding essay, " Evil, " Gass enlarges upon the themes of artistic quality and cultural valuesthat are central to the books he has considered, many of which seek to reveal the worst in people while admiring what they do best. As Gass writes, " The true alchemists do not change lead into gold, they change the world into words." "A Temple of Texts" is Gass at his most alchemical.
LC Classification NumberPS3557.A845T46 2006
