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Indlæser... Tom Stoppard: A Lifeaf Hermione Lee
   Ingen Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog.  eglinton | Jul 30, 2022 | 
 Lee’s studies of the plays are masterly – especially of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) and Arcadia (1993) – and her book will be a formidable resource for Stoppard enthusiasts. She makes a persuasive case for the importance of emotion, challenging – even in the early work – the old complaint that Stoppard is all head and no heart. Lee’s biography is perceptive, knowledgeable, stylish and very long HæderspriserDistinctions
"A perfect match of writer and subject: one of our most brilliant biographers takes on one of our greatest living playwrights--with his cooperation and access to a trove of hitherto unseen material. Tom Stoppard is a towering and beloved literary figure. Known for his dizzying narrative inventiveness and intense attention to language, he deftly deploys art, science, history, politics, and philosophy in works that span a remarkable spectrum of literary genres: theater, radio, film, TV, journalism, and fiction. His most acclaimed creations--Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Shakespeare in Love--remain as fresh and moving as when they dazzled their first audiences. Stoppard's life, too, is fascinating: born in Czechoslovakia, he escaped the Nazis with his mother and spent his early years in Singapore and India before arriving in England at age eight. Skipping university, he embarked on a brilliant career, becoming close friends over the years with an astonishing array of writers, actors, directors, musicians, and political figures, from Peter O'Toole, Harold Pinter, and Stephen Spielberg to Mick Jagger and Vaclav Havel. Having long described himself as a "bounced Czech," Stoppard was surprised to learn late in life of his Jewish family and the relatives he lost to the Holocaust, secrets his mother had kept from him. Lee's in-depth analysis seamlessly weaves Stoppard's life and work together into a vivid, insightful, and always riveting portrait of a remarkable man"-- No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Indlæser...GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)822.914Literature English & Old English literatures English drama 1900- 1900-1999 20th Century 1945-1999LC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit: (4.35)
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He’s an intellectual of course, but his approach is practical: a “brazen pragmatist” is his self-description. We see this in his continued labouring at his plays and texts, working alongside new casts and directors, even decades on. We see it too in his wariness of ideologues, as in the crucial Herzen speech in “Utopia,” valuing the here and now, as set against the fanciful aims of the destroyers, the nihilists with their unattainable (i.e. utopian) certainties. A humane and moral outlook, but not neat or predictable conclusions, is Stoppard’s way.
Biographer Hermione Lee presents all this thoroughly and wisely. The touching and sad Czech family history from which Stoppard emerged, already in focus from “Leopoldstadt” and his discoveries that underlay that play, is well described.
This book, the subject’s productive life really, is very long, but is never a slog. Lee’s exposition of Stoppard’s works is of value in itself. And her treatment of his character is coloured with affection and respect, not judgement. The reader comes to share that admiration, and is likely to come away with a stocked reading (or viewing) list from the wealth of references traversed. (