guimarães rosa > james joyce [verify, gm]
"The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, his 600-page epic masterpiece on honour, courage, love, and treachery that takes the form of a first-person monologue by a backlands outlaw who makes a pact with the Devil to gain revenge. The original title refers to the veredas - small paths through wetlands usually located at higher altitudes characterized by the presence of grasses and buritizais, groups of the buriti palm-tree (Mauritia flexuosa), that criss-cross the Sertão region in northern Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil - as a labyrinthine net where an outsider can easily get lost, and where there is no single way to a certain place, since all paths interconnect in such a way that any road can lead anywhere. The English title refers to a later episode in the book involving an attempt to make a deal with the Devil. Most of the book's spirit is however lost in translation, as the Portuguese original is written in a register that is both archaic and colloquial, making it a very difficult book to translate. The combination of its size, linguistic oddness and polemic themes caused a shock when it was published, but now it is considered one of the most important novels of South American literature."
#bookstr #madeinbr
"The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, his 600-page epic masterpiece on honour, courage, love, and treachery that takes the form of a first-person monologue by a backlands outlaw who makes a pact with the Devil to gain revenge. The original title refers to the veredas - small paths through wetlands usually located at higher altitudes characterized by the presence of grasses and buritizais, groups of the buriti palm-tree (Mauritia flexuosa), that criss-cross the Sertão region in northern Minas Gerais, Southeast Brazil - as a labyrinthine net where an outsider can easily get lost, and where there is no single way to a certain place, since all paths interconnect in such a way that any road can lead anywhere. The English title refers to a later episode in the book involving an attempt to make a deal with the Devil. Most of the book's spirit is however lost in translation, as the Portuguese original is written in a register that is both archaic and colloquial, making it a very difficult book to translate. The combination of its size, linguistic oddness and polemic themes caused a shock when it was published, but now it is considered one of the most important novels of South American literature."
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (""The Devil in the Street, In the Middle of the Whirlwind'') - Anna’s Archive
"From ancient times to our digital present, Strangers and Intimates traces the dramatic emergence of private life, uncovering how it became a protected domain, cherished as a space for intimacy, self-discovery and freedom. In this sweeping history, Tiffany Jenkins, an acclaimed cultural historian, takes readers on an epic journey, from the strict separations of public and private in ancient Athens to the moral rigidity of the Victorian home, and from the feminists of the 1970s who declared that ‘the personal is political’ to the boundary-blurring demands of our digital age. Strangers and Intimates is both a celebration of the private realm and a warning Jenkins reveals how the public and private divide shaped the modern world and why it remains crucial for our personal and collective freedom – and why this freedom is now in mortal danger."
