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The temptation of the impossible : Victor Hugo and Les misérables / Mario Vargas Llosa ; translated by John King.
LIBRA PQ2286 .V3713 2007
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Vargas Llosa, Mario, 1936-2025.
- Standardized Title:
- Tentación de lo imposible. English
- Language:
- English
- Spanish
- Subjects (All):
- Hugo, Victor, 1802-1885. Misérables.
- Hugo, Victor.
- Physical Description:
- x, 196 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2007]
- Summary:
- It is always interesting when a writer of Vargas Llosa's distinction discusses a great novelist, bringing to bear a luminous awareness of the craft of fiction. The Temptation of the Impossible is written with considerable zest, discrimination, and enthusiasm. Raising practical and theoretical points about the art of the novel, Vargas Llosa never loses sight of Hugo's specific achievement. I recommend this book without hesitation."--Victor Brombert, author of "Trains of Thought
- Contents:
- Introduction: Victor Hugo, the Ocean 1
- Chapter I The Divine Stenographer 11
- Chapter II The Dark Vein of Destiny 34
- The Law of Chance or the Order of Coincidence 34
- The Irresistible Traps 41
- The Ambush in the Gorbeau Tenement 43
- The Barricade at la Chanvrerie 45
- The Paris Sewers 47
- Elusive Freedom 52
- Chapter III Touchy Monsters 56
- A Character without Qualities 57
- The Saint 61
- The Just Man 65
- A Puritan World 70
- The Fanatic 75
- An Angel with a Dirty Face 80
- Collective Characters 84
- Chapter IV The Great Theater of the World 87
- Adjectives to Describe the Show 89
- Performance, Beauty, and Life 92
- Light and Shadow 95
- Sets 96
- The Victor at Waterloo 97
- Human Putrefaction 98
- Life as Fiction 102
- Chapter V Rich, Poor, Leisured, Idle, and Marginal 105
- Reformist Idealism 110
- The Just 114
- A Society Rebuilt 118
- The Victims: Confinement and Women 120
- A Source of Social Injustice: The Law 122
- A Stupid and Cruel Monster 124
- Chapter VI Civilized Barbarians 131
- Long Live Death! 132
- Slow-Motion Progress 134
- Victor Hugo and the Insurrection of 1832 138
- Chapter VII From Heaven Above 146
- The Enumeration of the Infinite 148
- Attempting the Impossible 154
- The Total Novel or the Deicidal Impulse 156
- Chapter VIII The Temptation of the Impossible 165.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [179]-184) and index.
- Translated from the Spanish.
- ISBN:
- 9780691131115
- 0691131112
- OCLC:
- 74965269
- Online:
- Contributor biographical information
- Publisher description
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