Centuria: One Hundred Outoboric Novels
Giorgio Manganelli
(Author)
Henry Martin
(Translator)
Description
Italo Calvino once remarked that in Giorgio Manganelli, "Italian literature has a writer who resembles no one else, unmistakable in each of his phrases, an inventor who is irresistible and inexhaustible in his games with language and ideas." Nowhere is this more true than in this Decameron of fictions, each composed on a single folio sheet of typing paper. Yet, what are they? Miniature psychodramas, prose poems, tall tales, sudden illuminations, malevolent sophistries, fabliaux, paranoiac excursions, existential oxymorons, or wondrous, baleful absurdities? Always provocative, insolent, sinister, and quite often funny, these 100 comic novels are populated by decidedly ordinary lovers, martyrs, killers, thieves, maniacs, emperors, bandits, sleepers, architects, hunters, prisoners, writers, hallucinations, ghosts, spheres, dragons, Doppelgngers, knights, fairies, angels, animal incarnations, and Dreamstuff. Each "novel" construes itself into a kind of Mbius strip, in which, as one crit
Product Details
Price
$15.00
$13.95
Publisher
McPherson
Publish Date
April 01, 2008
Pages
214
Dimensions
5.99 X 0.56 X 8.52 inches | 0.61 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780929701851
BISAC Categories:
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
Henry Martin is Professor of Music at Rutgers University--the country's only program that grants a degree in jazz scholarship. He has enjoyed a dual career as an award-winning composer-pianist and a music theorist specializing in jazz and the Western tonal tradition. Albany Records released his SELECTED PIANO MUSIC CD in 2010, and in 2004 Bridge Records released his CD PRELUDES AND FUGUES, with Martin performing. He is coeditor of the ANNUAL REVIEW OF JAZZ STUDIES, and his books include CHARLIE PARKER AND THEMATIC IMPROVISATION, COUNTERPOINT, and ESSENTIAL JAZZ: THE FIRST 100 YEARS, 2e.
Reviews
"'Centuria' earns its place among postmodern classics such as Calvino's 'Invisible Cities,' 'Hopscotch' by Julio Cortazar and 'Life, a User's Manual' by Georges Perec." -- Florian Mussgnug "Times Literary Supplement"
"The comparison to Calvino...may be inevitable, but it seems unfair. Calvino's later story-mosaics surprise us by depicting a world we recognize; his invisible city is late twentieth-century Rome. ...'Centuria' brings together harmony and intensity, wringing creation out of closure; it can make us believe anything's possible." -- John Domini "American Book Review"
"Despite the short length of his 'novels,' Manganelli not only provides a great range of genres--ghost stories, love stories, tall tales, and so on--but also manages to end each story satisfyingly. His economic and essential use of language cuts to the heart of the matter..." -- Harvey Pekar "Bookforum"
"The comparison to Calvino...may be inevitable, but it seems unfair. Calvino's later story-mosaics surprise us by depicting a world we recognize; his invisible city is late twentieth-century Rome. ...'Centuria' brings together harmony and intensity, wringing creation out of closure; it can make us believe anything's possible." -- John Domini "American Book Review"
"Despite the short length of his 'novels,' Manganelli not only provides a great range of genres--ghost stories, love stories, tall tales, and so on--but also manages to end each story satisfyingly. His economic and essential use of language cuts to the heart of the matter..." -- Harvey Pekar "Bookforum"