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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Présence d'esprit

Présence d'esprit

Terence, Mathieu

Paperback

Series: Essais - Documents

Letters & EssaysLiterary Criticism

ISBN10: 2234064872
ISBN13: 9782234064874
Publisher: Stock
Published: Sep 15 2010
Pages: 234
Weight: 0.59
Height: 0.50 Width: 5.32 Depth: 8.47
Language: French

Rights sold to: China (Jilin Publishing House)

A world away from the lamento of writers interested in feelings, and the humdrum tenets of domestic literature, this book aims first and foremost to be a fervent and combative meditation on the freedoms and revelations conveyed by the great texts - those magnificent death-dodgers.

For this understanding of literature to assume its full meaning, it needed to be brought to life by references to works which consistently stimulate us, overwhelm us and teach us about life.

Cioran promoted knowledge as much by his nihilism as through History. Mandiargues perfected an astonishing and magisterial eroscope. Even at the very beginning of the Twentieth Century, Carlo Michestaedter started contemplating the ravages the world would run if it drained words of their meaning. Victor Tausk saw the psychosis that would grip the world as it globalised. Linda Lê, who attached so much importance to her dreams, viewed the absolute as a haven. Annie Le Brun writes about the fire of life and the shadow it can cast over the sun. Jünger demonstrated that there is no better of way seeing far than gaining a bit of height. By giving us the unclassifiable Roi sans divertissements, Giono invites to speculate on the new face of Evil. Reading Les Géants provides an opportunity to gauge the scope of Le Clésio's books. The reader might ultimately succumb to pondering the sacred fires of Style.

Because expressiveness is rich with resonance, because it defines serene vigilance and reliable judgment and initiative in moments of crisis, because the times ahead look as exciting as they are perilous and because - unlike the grim figure of sinister memory who took out a revolver when he heard the word culture - we take out our culture in a world full of revolvers... because of all this, it seemed right to bring together works that severally and separately display admirable presence of mind.


Born in 1972, Mathieu Terence is the author of five novels: Fiasco (Phébus, First Prize for the Hachette Writer's Grant, 1998), Journal d'un coeur sec (Phébus, winner of the Académie Française François Mauriac prize, 2000), Maître-Chien (Phébus, 2004), Technosmose (Gallimard, 2007) and L'Autre vie (Gallimard, 2009). He has also had a number of novellas published (most notably Les Filles de l'ombre, Phébus, winner of the new Académie Française prize, 2002), as well as an essay and several articles. He worked as an editor for Phébus, and ran the Melville collection for éditions Léo Scheer.

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