Nâng Cao Học Lực Bằng Phương Pháp Tối Giản tải xuống LIT miễn phí

Nurseli Dibek floolight — I know of no author in all of the English language who is like Peake, or who could aspire to be like him. His voice is as unique as that of Milton, Bierce, Conrad, Blake, Donne, or Eliot, and as fully-realized. I am a hard and critical man, cynical and not easily moved, but there are passages in the Gormenghast series which so shocked me by the force of their beauty that I snap the book shut, overwhelmed with wonderment, and take a moment to catch my breath. I would drop my head. My eyes would search the air; as if I could find, there, the conclusion I was seeking. My brow would crease--in something like despondency or desperation--and then, of its own accord, a smile would break across my face, and I would shake my head, slowly, and laugh, and sigh. And laugh. Peake's writing is not easy fare. I often needed room to breathe and time for contemplation, but he is not inaccessible, nor arduous. He does not, like Joyce or Eliot, require the reader to know the history of western literature in order to understand him. His story is deceptively simple; it is the world in which he sets it that can be so overwhelming. Peake writes with a painter's eye, which is natural enough, as he is more famous as an illustrator than a writer (the only self-portrait in the National Portrait Gallery). He paints each scene, each moment, in such careful, loving, playful detail that it can only be described by the original definition of 'sublime': a vista which is so grand and beautiful that it dwarfs our humanity, evoking a wonder akin to fear. But Peake's writing is not so entirely alienating; on the contrary: he is vividly concerned with life. Gormenghast is the story of a life starting at birth, though our hero only got as far as the cusp of manhood before Peake was seized by malady and death. Each character is brightly and grotesquely alive. The 'fantasy' of this book is not, like so many epics, magic signifying moral conflict. The magic of Peake's world is the absurdly perfect figures that people it. They are stylized and symbolic, but like Gogol, Peake is working off of his own system of symbology instead of relying on the staid, familiar archetypes of literature. Unusual as they may be, there is a recognizable verisimilitude in the madness imbued in each. Their obsessions, quirks, and unpredictability feel all too human. They are frail, mad, and surprising. Like the wild characters of his sketches, Peake writes in exaggerated strokes, but somehow, that makes them more recognizable, realistic, and memorable than the unadorned reality of post-modernists. Since truth is stranger than fiction, only off-kilter, unhinged worlds will seem real--as Peake's does. This focus on fantastical characters instead of fantastical powers has been wryly dubbed 'Mannerpunk' or a 'Fantasy of Manners'. It is a much more enveloping and convincing type of fantasy, since it engages the mind directly with visceral artistic techniques instead of relying on a threadbare language of symbolic power. Peake does not want to explain the world, but paint it. Tolkien can certainly be impressive, in his way, but after reading Peake, it is difficult to call him fantastical. His archetypal characters, age-old moral conflict, and epic plot all seem so hidebound against the wild bulwark of Peake's imagination. The world of Gormenghast is magical and dreamlike, without even needing to resort to the parlor tricks of spells, wizards, and monsters. Peake's people are more fantastical than dragons because their beings are instilled with a shifting and scintillating transience. Most dragons, fearsome as they may be on the outside, are inwardly little more than plot movers. Their fearful might is drawn from a recognizable tradition, and I question how fantastical something can really be when its form and behavior are so familiar to us. Likewise Peake's world, though made up of things recognizable, is twisted, enchanted, and made uncanny without ever needing to stretch our disbelief. We have all experienced wonder, confusion, and revelation at the world, so why do authors think that making it less real will make it more wonderful? What is truly fantastical is to find magic in our own world, and in our own lives. But then, it is not an easy thing to do. Authors write in forms, cliches, archetypes, and moral arguments because it gives them something to work with; a place to start, and a way to measure their progress, lest they lose themselves. To write unfettered is vastly more difficult, and requires either great boldness, or great naivete. Peake is ever bold. You will never catch him flat-footed; his pen is ever moving. He drives on in sallies and skirmishes, teasing, prodding, suggesting, and always, in the end, he is a quantum presence, evading our cumbersome attempts to catch him in any one place. Each sentence bears a thought, a purpose, a consciousness. The only thing keeping the book moving is the restless joy of Peake's wit, his love and passion for his book, its places, characters, and story. He also has a love for writing, and for the word, which is clear on every page. A dabbler in poetry, his careful sense of meter is masterful, as precise as Bierce. And unlike most fantasists, Peake's poetry is often the best part of his books, instead of the least palatable. Even absent his amusing characterization and palpable world, his pure language is a thing to behold. In the introduction, Quentin Crisp tells us about the nature of the iconoclast: that being different is not a matter of avoiding and rejecting what others do--that is merely contrariness, not creativity. To be original means finding an inspiration that is your own and following it through to the bitter end. Peake does that, here, maintaining a depth, pace, and quality that is almost unbelievable. He makes the book his own, and each time he succeeds in lulling us into familiarity, we can be sure that it is a playful ruse, and soon he will shake free again. Alas, not all readers will be able to keep up with him. Those desiring repetition, comfort, and predictability will instead receive shock, betrayal, and confusion. However, for those who love words, who seek beauty, who relish the unexpected, and who find the most stirring sensation to be the evocation of wonder, I have no finer book to suggest. No other fantasist is more fantastical--or more fundamentally human. My Fantasy Book Suggestions

Henriette Ten _imfina — This might be the same book I read. I read The Plan of God by Packer. If it is the same, it was good.