The starting point of A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) is an experience everyone has had. We have all had a physical sensation that has reminded us so vividly of a moment in our past that we have almost ceased to be aware of the present. Marcel Proust immortalized this in the first volume of his fifteen-volume novel, in 1913. But the novel, completed just before his death in 1922, deals with many other themes. It is an account of how the narrator, Marcel, discovers his vocation as an artist and explores the nature of art. As a psychological novel, it studies jealousy and how the emotional traumas we undergo in childhood can influence our adult lives. It is the first major novel to offer a detailed account of male and female homosexuality. It is a satirical analysis of French upper-class society at the turn of the century. It also shows how this society changes with time. Philip Thody offers a straightforward analysis of how Proust's novel is constructed, what it contains, and how its themes can be related to our experiences as members of American or English society in the late twentieth century. He explains one of the most complex prose narratives in terms that both educate and entertain the reader who may be unfamiliar with Proust and his work. '...(Thody) writes in a most engagingly down-to-earth manner, conveying a real sense of enthusiasm, and positively luring the reader towards his potentially daunting subject ... Professor Thody's contribution holds its own with ease.' - Modern and Contemporary France.
Europe Since 1945 is an exciting new survey of the history of Europe since the end of World War Two. In the second half of the twentieth century Europe has known a period of peace and stability unprecedented in its history and virtually unparalleled in the rest of the world. Europe explains the reasons for this state of affairs. Thought- provoking and wide ranging, this book discusses political, economic, social and cultural change in modern Europe. Covering both Western and Eastern Europe comprehensively and featuring extensive analysis of the 1990s, this book includes examination of: * the Cold War * War at the edges - Northern Ireland and Yugoslavia * the European Union * the issues of Nationalism * the end of the dictatorships * economic prosperity, the EEC and the Euro * the break-up of the European Empires and the consequences.
A study of the attempt by French politicians to use the law to forbid the use of words in English and American origin. Classifies some of these words and lists expressions in current use in American and England which are particularly difficult to render in French, comparing these with some equally untranslatable French turns of speech.
By studying the nature of disbelief, the treatment of childhood, the presentation of moral and political problems, the taste for experimentation and the greater liberty now available for the description of sexual experiences, this introduction to twentieth-century literature seeks to define what distinguishes the literature of the twentieth century from that of the periods preceding it. Particular attention is given to the problem of realism, especially in the context of the 'magical realism' practised by European as well as non-European authors.
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