In this witty, Borges-like fiction, A.S. Byatt weaves a dazzling fiction out of one man's search for fact. Fed up with stultifying criticism, Phineas G. decides to study the messiness of 'real life'. Doing nothing by halves he sets out to write a biography of a great biographer. But a 'whole life' is hard to find. How do we put the idea of a person together? Everywhere he looks he finds fragments and gaps: bones and husks, boxes of marbles, collections of coins and undated postcards. Trails run cold and mysteries are unresolved.Phineas feels he is hunting shadows. Like a shaman flying across the globe, his mind tracks the journeys of his subjects to the deserts of Africa and the maelstroms of the Arctic, where the shapes of myth meet the patterns of science. He meets others building wholes from bits and pieces: taxonomists, ecologists to travel agents offering the trip of your dreams. In the process he also puzzles out his own future - but which woman will guide him out of the labyrinth? Tantalising, comic and rueful, The Biographer's Tale is a modern delight, a colour-filled novel of detection and desire.
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Recensione:
"Byatt's verbal prowess is spectacular." - The Vancouver Sun
L'autore:
A.S. Byatt, author of the Booker Prize-winning Possession, is one of Britain's leading novelists. Her recent, highly-acclaimed Babel Tower was the last part of a trilogy of the post-war years which began with The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life. Her latest collection of short stories was Elementals (1998). She was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1999.
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- EditoreChatto & Windus
- Data di pubblicazione2000
- ISBN 10 0701169451
- ISBN 13 9780701169459
- RilegaturaCopertina rigida
- Numero edizione1
- Numero di pagine272
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Valutazione libreria