Average customer rating:
- Masterpiece Mangled by Atrocious Translation
- You've Seen the Movie, Now Read the Book!
- The battle of the sexes is evil
- Intelligent, witty and thoroughly engaging
- Absolutely sinful...and so much fun to read
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Les Liaisons dangereuses (Oxford World's Classics)
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos , and
Douglas Parmee
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0192838679 |
Book Description
The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. Its prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil--gifted, wealthy, and bored--form an unholy alliance and
turn seduction into a game. And they play this game with such wit and style that it is impossible not to admire them, until they discover mysterious rules that they cannot understand. In the ensuing battle there can be no winners, and the innocent suffer with the guilty.
This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able to judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about a world we still inhabit.
Customer Reviews:
Masterpiece Mangled by Atrocious Translation.......2007-08-31
I purchased the Oxford Classic edition of Les Liasons, translated by Douglas Parmee, and much to my chagrin, found the text to be riddled with poor writing and literary anachronisms.
Parmee may be accurately transliterating the French original; I of course cannot read it. But the book he has produced borders on the unreadable. Cecile, an aristocratic French girl of 15, speaks like a besotted 60-year old English gentleman. "Fortunately Mummy's feeling much better today and Madame de Marteuil is coming with the Chevalier Danceny and somebody else but she never comes until late and when you're all alone for such a long time, it gets jolly boring." (pg. 32) Yes, you read that right, "jolly boring." In Parmee's translation, Cecile uses "jolly" quite often, but somehow I cannot imagine a beautiful if naive French girl ever saying "jolly" anything.
Also gone is the tense sophistication of the Vicomte and the Marquise's dialogs in the movie--in its stead it seems that Parmee has elected to give them the voices of two American High School students, void of all intelligence, charm and wit, leaving them with just enough arrogant cunning to move the plot. Throughout all the letters, there are a great deal of run-on sentences which require a great deal of effort to understand, a characteristic of bad writing.
I've read a few pages of the Lièvre translation and can plainly see that it is much improved. I recommend you purchase that version and leave this one well alone, as I plan to do.
You've Seen the Movie, Now Read the Book!.......2007-04-04
Whether or not you've seen the movie with Glen Close, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon or ,by chance, the asian subtitled version; if you loved those then you can't afford to ignore the original that spawned them all. What a devilishly guilty pleasure it is, just take care not to blush too strongly or they might suspect what you're reading is not quite so innocent;-}
The battle of the sexes is evil.......2007-02-08
In this novel, the ingeneous author juxtaposes two forces of evil--the Vicomte de Valmont as the mysoginist who exploits female sexuality in order to ruin women, and the misanthropic woman--the Marquise de Merteuil, who is brilliant and evil enough to beat men at their own game. That is, until she locks horns with the Vicomte. In each other they meet their match, only this is far from a love match. I think that in each other, they see embodied the very things they each hate about the opposite sex. So, very aptly, their relationship may be called a hate match.
In discussing the wicked deeds of these two characters, critics have attributed them to boredom. One critic said that the two antagonists display a sort of pride in their skill at sexual intrigue. I think that this assessment misses the point. Everything that the Vicomte and the Marquise do in the story is a game leading only to one goal--they each have a burning desire to destroy the other. This may not be readily apparent, but I think that when you realize how much they both hate each other, it is not possible that they could have had any other end for each other in mind. The relationship is one of hate, and their goal is mutual ruin. The people they hurt and destroy are not the point. The point is they want to ruin each other, and they use anyone and everyone to accomplish this goal. Poor Cecile and Danceny are tertiary damage.
The Madame de Rosemonde, who is the Vicomte de Valmont's aunt in the story, described the affair perfectly toward the end of the book. In a letter to Madame de Volanges she states, "I recoil from entering into the least detail concerning this pack of horrors." A pack of horrors it is, but one worth studying. Rarely does a novel provide such a profound and thorough examination of hatred, in particular the hatred between the sexes. However, brace yourself. It is not a comfortable experience to look at hatred this up-close.
The movies that have been made from this book do not really do it justice. I think that everyone deserves the experience of reading this book personally. I think you will learn something about the war of the sexes that may make you reflect on your own misoginistic or misanthropic feelings, thereby providing you with a critical view of the fabled "war between the sexes." If you have such feelings, it will make you question why you feel that way and to what end do you harbor these feelings and perspectives.
Intelligent, witty and thoroughly engaging.......2007-01-09
Les Liaison Dangereuses is very simply one of the best stories I have ever read. Its central characters, Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteil are despicable human beings, but with a charm, wit and intelligence that endear them to the reader. I could not help but share their joy in deceiving and manipulating their victims, whilst at the same time being appalled by their behaviour.
I first heard of this book whilst reading Robert Greene's, The Art of Seduction. His reasons for choosing this wonderful book as a source of inspiration are obvious! This book is highly instructive for the student of human behaviour, and a pure pleasure to read for those who enjoy a well constructed and interesting story. Is the book truly "dangerous"? Be your own judge.
Absolutely sinful...and so much fun to read.......2006-09-29
What I love about this book, aside from the fact that it maintains a voyeuristic appeal through its epistolary form, is that it is cerebrally sexual.
Laclos' language is gorgeous and his subtlety is sublime. The book is wildly sexual but never crass or disgusting.
Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont are the absolute paragons of villainy you will love to hate.
The book is at its simplest level a study of the total destruction of naivete and innocence, but you can be sure that just desserts will be served all around.
A fantastic novel...if only de Laclos had written more!
Also, the movie version starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich is wonderful as well--but of course, I recommend reading the novel first.
Product Description
"Les Liaisons Dangereuses", A Play by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos. Produced on the Broadway Stage by James M. Nederlander, The Schubert Organization, Inc., Jerome Minskoff, Elizabeth I. McCann and Stephen Graham in association with Jonathan Farkas.
Book Description
Love . . . sex . . . seduction. Of the three, only the last matters. Love is a meaningless word, and sex an ephemeral pleasure, but seduction is an amusing game in which victory means power and the ability to humiliate one’s enemies and revel with one’s friends. So it is for the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, two supremely bored aristocrats during the final years before the French Revolution. Together they concoct a wildly wicked wager: If Valmont can successfully seduce the virtuous wife of a government official, Madame de Tourvel, then Madame Merteuil will sleep with him again. But Madame Merteuil also wants Valmont to conquer the young and innocent former convent schoolgirl, Cécile Volanges. Can he do both?
When Les Liaisons Dangereuses was first published in 1782, it both scandalized and titillated the aristocracy it was aimed against, who publicly denounced it and privately devoured it. Today we still recognize its relevance, for what could be more contemporary than its appalling image of everyday evil — small, selfish, manipulative, and mean.
Book Description
A series of intimate letters chronicles the amorous adventures of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont — rivals who use their bodies as weapons in the war of the sexes. Set in the final days of the ancien régime, the novel paints a revealing portrait of aristocratic decadence.
Book Description
Un panorama des diffÉrentes approches critiques sur le transfert de la page À l'Écran offre ici un contexte À la comparaison entre le roman de Laclos et plusieurs de ses adaptations filmiques: Les Liaisons dangereuses 1960 (1959) de Roger Vadim, Dangerous Liaisons (1988) de Stephen Frears, Valmont (1989) de Milos Forman et Cruel Intentions (1999) de Roger Kumble. Prenant en considÉration le rÔle de la lettre en tant qu'agent narratif, cette Étude compare les techniques narratives employÉes dans l'original et dans les adaptations, avant d'examiner le rÔle de la lettre en tant qu'agent de l'intrigue et d'analyser chacune des oeuvres.
Examinant pour la premiÈre fois les problÈmes spÉcifiques posÉs À l'adaptateur par la forme Épistolaire, ce livre, qui propose aussi bien une historique et un État prÉsent de la relation entre les deux genres que de nouveaux aperçus sur cette relation, ne manquera pas d'intÉresser, par ses analyses comparÉes des diffÉrentes oeuvres et la documentation qu'elle propose dans ses appendices, les spÉcialistes de littÉrature comme de cinÉma. Elle offre aussi un prÉcieux outil aux enseignants souhaitant apporter, par le biais de l'adaptation, une nouvelle perspective À leur enseignement de la littÉrature en gÉnÉral et du roman de Laclos en particulier.
Book Description
Returning home to Mason, Ohio, Neil Sadler's past creeps up behind him and is mirrored in the present. Neil discovers the truth of a childhood love and his childhood faith.
Customer Reviews:
Homecoming.......2007-07-13
This is a beautifully written book. I admire the careful descriptions the author gives of her characters. Neil, a widowed artist, comes back to a small town in Ohio after many years away. As you read, you'll find how an old tragedy still affects the characters.
The characters are not saintly by all means and are flawed. For example, Mary never really loved her dificult mother etc. This book doesn't give perfect solutions but gives a feeling of hope.
I enjoy the description of a large family network. The author understands the pull of a strong family connection.
I hope to read more of Ann Tatlock's books soon.
The Writer's Writer and the Reader's Delight.......2006-06-27
Ann Tatlock can't get any better, or at least I don't see how! Looking for characters that invite you to walk in their skin? Need a setting that surrounds you? Tatlock laces the pages with secrets waiting to be uncovered. Will life go on for Neil Sadler and Mary Beeken? Don't plan on putting this one down. Things We Once Held Dear--a reader's delight from the writer's writer.
True gem of a book!.......2006-04-19
Things We Held Dear by Ann Tatlock is a rare gem of a Christian novel. Neil Sadler returns home to Mason, Ohio after the sudden death of his wife Caroline feeling like he has unfinished business in the town he abandoned almost thirty years ago. He returns to find Mary, the once love of his life, in trouble. Can he rescue her this time instead of abandoning her the way he did so long ago? This book is so full of the little details about life in a small rural town, it's obvious that Tatlock loves and respects the people there. There are no stereotypes here, just people with their flaws and strengths. One of the things that I loved best about this book is that that Christian characters didn't walk around proselytizing the way Christians often do in books. People, at least the ones I know, don't really talk that way. Tatlock's strongest Christian character Uncle Bernie uses St Francis' motto about the faith "Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary, use words." When Neil does find faith, it happens naturally and doesn't completely change the character, it just gives him more depth. The renovations on the house are a nice metaphor for the changes going on within Neil and the Sadler family itself. Oh, and I did I mention that with all this great detail, plot, and characters, Tatlock also manages to get in a murder mystery? And she handles it deftly. Kudos to Tatlock on a beautiful piece of fiction!
Rich characters to savor.......2006-04-04
After the death of his wife, art teacher Neil Sadler returns to his hometown of Mason, Ohio, for a summer of rest and healing. The pace is quite different from New York City, and boyhood memories collide with familiar faces: his cousin Grace, in the process of turning the ancestral home into a bed and breakfast; Uncle Bernie, the retired Episcopal priest whose gracious words of wisdom contrast with his silence on confidential matters; and Mary, the distant cousin whose childhood friendship could have blossomed into more.
The latter's presence brings the most surprise and conflict to Neil's life. Mary's father, Cal, was like a second father to Neil and the one person who encouraged his art. Then came the murder, shattering Neil's idealism and Mary's life. New York became Neil's home for the next two dozen years. Mary got married and moved away.
Now Mary's back in Mason. Her husband, a policeman under investigation for killing in alleged self-defense, spends his days drinking to forget. Mary's friend Peg suggests that now is her time to move on, find the happiness she missed with Neil.
But the mystery of the summer of `77 remains. Mary's invalid mother was murdered, and her father, Neil's supportive Uncle Cal, was arrested for the crime - and pled guilty.
This book is a slow weaving of past and present, as old secrets come to life and new truths are found. Poignant description reflects the complex character emotions. If you're looking for fast-paced action and adventure in a quick read you'll soon forget, don't choose this novel. If, however, you want rich characters you can savor getting to know, Tatlock's book is well worth your time. - Katie Hart, Christian Book Previews.com
A must read!.......2006-03-07
THINGS WE ONCE HELD DEAR by Ann Tatlock
March 6, 2006
Rating: 5 Stars
Ann Tatlock's THINGS WE ONCE HELD DEAR will be on my list of to books for 2006. While on some levels it works as a Christian-themed story, it works on many other levels, and for someone like me that is anything but Christian, this was a novel that held my attention and captivated me. It's a poignant story about a man who returns home after having been away for many years, to face the demons that sent him away in the first place. But he's also running away (again) from yet another tragedy, that of the death of his wife Caroline.
Neil Sadler is that man that left home when a terrible tragedy struck his family. This tragedy is at the heart of the book, and it is slowly revealed through flashbacks and reminiscences by Neil and other family members. It's a complex story, because not only did it impact Neil in a great way, but also it changed the course of his life. If this incident had not happened, would he have remained in his own town and married the girl that he was in love with all those years ago?
This is a book about nostalgia, about family tragedies, and about forgiveness. On another level it could be about faith in family and in a higher power. But the bottom line is, it's a great novel that will appeal to a wide range of readers. I highly recommend THINGS WE ONCE HELD DEAR.
Average customer rating:
- Virtual murder mystery that is more accessible than her earlier books
- Zen Meets Cyberpunk
- Not only the cup is empty
- Utter Tripe
- Good fun book for cyberpunk fans
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Tea From An Empty Cup (Tea from an Empty Cup)
Pat Cadigan
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0312866658 |
Amazon.com
Two-time Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for Best Novel, Pat Cadigan is the Queen of Cyberpunk for the brilliance of her ideas, the genius of her near-future extrapolations, and the beauty of her writing. No one else has explored and illuminated the mind-machine interface with the keen and relentless intelligence she demonstrates in her novels Mindplayers, Synners, Fools, and the long-awaited Tea from an Empty Cup. Her fourth novel is a perceptive, fascinating, witty SF mystery of artificial reality, whose paradoxical name perfectly defines its nature: an immaterial world of pure sensation, where, by legal mandate, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden.
The hazards of Artificial Reality are spilling into the real world--people vanish and solitary gamers are found slain in sealed AR booths. The young woman Yuki, child of a Japan destroyed before her birth, enters AR as the new assistant to the mysterious celebrity Joy Flower, but with her own agenda: to find Tom Iguchi, her missing beloved, who never was her lover but had been one of Joy's Boyz. The hard-boiled homicide detective Dore Konstantin stalks the virtual streets of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty seeking a serial killer who may have murdered eight gamers from inside AR itself. But how do you find missing or hidden persons in a world where nothing is as it seems? The two plot lines subtly converge as fact and fantasy, murderer and victim, as well as understanding and identity invert in a virtual universe where the dangers are real and ever-present, and you can be anything or anyone but yourself. --Cynthia Ward
Book Description
"How can you drink tea from an empty cup?"
That ancient Zen riddle holds the key to a baffling mystery: a young man found with his throat slashed while locked alone in a virtual reality parlor.
The secret of this enigmatic death lies in an apocalyptic cyberspace shadow-world where nothing is certain, and even one's own identity can change in an instant.
Customer Reviews:
Virtual murder mystery that is more accessible than her earlier books.......2005-10-15
The speculative fiction of the 1980s and the early 1990s by and large treated Japan as an economic powerhouse that threatened to subsume the United States and Europe -- mirroring, unsurprisingly, the view that prevailed in the culture at large. Japanese companies outperformed their American counterparts in the marketplace, at times even buying up their flailing and failing rivals. Cultural icons such as Rockefeller Center became Japanese property. The Japanese economy was booming, while Europe and the United States struggled in the aftermath of funding the defense systems of the Cold War. From William Gibson's Neuromancer to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, the clear assumption was that the future belonged to Japan.
In the latter part of the 1990s, things have changed: the United States is riding an unprecedented wave of prosperity while Japan is caught in a financial crisis that covers the whole Pacific Rim. Speculative fiction has responded (as it should) to these altered circumstances, nowhere more clearly than in Pat Cadigan's new novel, Tea from an Empty Cup, an expansion and grafting-together of two earlier stories about the future of Japan which were originally published on OMNI Online. Instead of the Rising Sun, Cadigan shows us a Japan where the sun has set on its glory days.
The plot of Tea from an Empty Cup centers on the murder of an anonymous Artificial Reality (AR) junky and its investigation by policewoman Dore Konstantin. The victim, whose throat has been cut from ear to ear, was accessing the AR at the time of his death -- and was being murdered there as well. Everyone knows, of course, that what occurs in AR cannot affect the real world, but Konstantin is starting to wonder: Rumors of similar AR deaths have been circulating that indicate something unusual is going on. Intermixed with Konstantin's investigation (which occurs in numbered chapters under the title of "Death in the Promised Land") is a second storyline, a search for the missing Tomoyuki Iguchi by his friend (and would-be lover) Yuki, told in chapters under the heading of "Empty Cup." Yuki fears that Tom has become one of the many lost Joyz Boyz, young men who exchange their bodies for high-speed AR access.
The hunt for friend and murderer by Yuki and Konstantin spiral around each other as they each pursue their searches into post-apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty, an AR that promises fun for all, as long as you have the resources to pay for it. Survival in AR requires a mental dexterity that can easily drive someone insane, and neither woman is particularly adept at navigating the make-believe world. Both must learn how to survive in this new setting before they can make progress on their quests. It is in the heady rush to the end, as the stories spiral around each other faster and faster, like water down the drain, that the novel is at its weakest, for Cadigan's prose becomes more and more concise and we lose some of the depth of the setting and characters that has been established earlier.
Tea from an Empty Cup is less densely layered than Cadigan's previous novels Fools and Synners, but it is filled with the same streetwise characters who know that, when it comes to technology, "the street finds its own uses." Cadigan's characters are the ultimate cynics and pessimists, who are nevertheless still surprised when their dim worldview is validated. In this way, Cadigan's cyberpunk (for this is the subgenre of which she is queen) is different from that of her male counterparts, most of whose visions of the future are equally bleak but whose characters lack this quality of surprisability. Yuki and Konstantin are hardened to their world, but they are still human enough to hope for better. While the flash of Tea comes from the same elements as other cyberpunk novels, what makes the story resonate with the reader long after the last page is this vestigial morality in its characters, who are trying to maintain some dignity in a world that is being made before them.
Zen Meets Cyberpunk.......2004-06-28
If you can wrap your mind around Zen concepts you might want to check out TEA FROM AN EMPTY CUP by Pat Cadigan, a short, but good, novel that takes a slightly Zen approach to the idea of virtual reality.
Virtual reality is here and it is cheap enough so that much of the population works just to live their lives in some of the virtual scenarios. One young man is found dead in a locked room where he was logged in. His throat was cut and there are no sharp objects in the room. A detective notices that a number of other similar deaths have occurred recently. Thus two quests are taken up as two women log in disguised as the young man and try to find out what he was doing and who he may have met. It is a strange world where things are more real than real. Sensations are heightened and rumors exist of a way out the other side. It is this world that the two women must navigate to find out what happened.
The switching viewpoints are a little more confusing that is usual but the future world is quite interesting. I like the melding of cyberpunk, virtual reality and Japanese philosophy. It blends well and offers a good backdrop for that rare commodity, the science-fiction mystery. I picked up the book to look at it and found myself hooked right away. A very entertaining read if you don't mind having your mind bent and limbered up a bit. Check it out.
Not only the cup is empty.......2003-09-12
I bought this book based on a slew of hushed and awed reviews, and now issue fair warning. This is a shallow, pretentious, dull and silly book, which doesn't so much end as stagger to a halt. Word is that the 'story' picks up in a following book but, fool me once . . . Like Delmar, shackled in the flickering blue unreality of a picture show, I warn, "Do not seek the treasure." Unlike Delmar I know it is because there is no treasure to be found.
Utter Tripe.......2003-05-20
Cyberspace is addictive, expensive and ultimately boring. Thanks for the newsflash.
With numerous typographical errors, undifferentiated cardboard characters, a murderously tedious whodunit and the most uninteresting rendition of cyberpunk in a decade, Cadigan has achieved a new low in modern science fiction.
Would have been more appropriately titled, Words from an Empty Book (and even that sounds more interesting than this book ends up being).
Good fun book for cyberpunk fans.......2003-04-19
This the first book of Pat Cadigan's I've read. I can't remember who or where I heard about it, but a good book.
The novel is set in a near future cyberpunk world where artifcial reality (AR) is commonplace and people regularly fall into lives in AR that are more compelling that lives in the real world. The technology is believeable with enough details to satisfy hard sci-fi readers without delving into textbookese.
Having enjoyed the proto-ARs that are online games, I was interested in seeing what Ms. Cadigan had to say about the future.
Similiar to Gibson's Pattern Recognition, all the characters in the book are looking for something. The focus is on the role of artifical reality in these hunts. The vision is interesting, but in the end it is difficult to relate to reality.
The book is fun and enjoyable as a quick read, but for more heady cyberpunk, turn to Bruce Sterling.
Amazon.com
In Artificial Reality, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden--or so they say. Run a con game in AR, and the law does not prosecute; have sex with a virtual child persona, and the police do not interfere. But infringe on a powerful corporation's copyright and the law rushes in. And so Detective Lieutenant Doré Konstantin unhappily finds herself appointed Chief Officer of the TechnoCrime AR Division. Virtual crimes are almost impossible to solve, her two-person staff is usually assigned elsewhere, and she spends so much of her life pursuing software pirates in AR that her sanity may be in danger. Things can't get any worse.
Then she is assigned to track a cyberstalker known as "Dervish," whose virtual persona is capable of manipulating AR in unprecedented ways. Konstantin reluctantly acknowledges Dervish's victim may be right: Dervish may have done the impossible. He may have traded places with an Artificial Intelligence, letting the AI take possession of his body as his mind escapes into the cyberverse of Artificial Reality, which he can manipulate as no software, even AI, ever could--impossible manipulations that include deleting all the exits from AR, and perhaps even killing the trapped investigator, Doré Konstantin.
Dervish Is Digital is the witty, sharp-edged, hardboiled sequel to the equally exciting and stylish SF mystery Tea from an Empty Cup. --Cynthia Ward
Book Description
Detective Lieutenant Dore Konstantin pursues criminals and identity crime in Artificial Reality. And shes come to realize: in Artificial Reality, its time to get real.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Not bad, but not as good as the first novel, Tea From an Empty Cup. This is pretty much a stretched novella, I presume. The book is more of the same theme, exploring the problems of policing virtual worlds, especially when they can be in any country at any time. Then those doing the policing have to work out what is a crime, to start with.
Best Cadigan novel I've read since Mindplayers. 4.6 stars.......2005-09-07
______________________________________________
Picked this one up at the libe, after seeing a favorable comment somewhere. This will be an unusually disorganized "review", since I took some notes, browsed around online (finding nothing worthwhile), then witlessly returned the book before writing it up. So you'll be getting what was truly memorable...
Anyway, this is a sequel to Tea from an Empty Cup (which I haven't read), and is further hijinx in VR (here AR), which to my great relief doesn't include the (to me) odious Post-apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty (sic, and sicker). This one involves one Hastings Dervish, who is stalking his ex in cyberspace, and running Lt. Konstantin of the AR Police around in circles in the bowels of the casinos of digital Hong Kong. It's an sfnal police procedural, and a nice one.
Very crisp writing. Lots of lovely one-line zingers -- I'd quote you some, if I still had the book... "He morphs, he torques, he crawls on his belly like a reptile..." -- his ex, re the elusive Dervish, from a scribbled note to myself.
The ending is one of those where the book just stops, which actually works pretty well here. And the book is blessedly short. Recommended.
Incidentally, my fave Cadigan of all time is the wonderfully creepy short, "Roadside Rescue". Wham, bam, SLAM. Reprinted often, and worth looking for.
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
Don't bother!.......2005-08-20
Bah! What an uninteresting piece of garbage. I have not failed to finish a book in about four years. This tripe will now reset the timer. The characters are flat, the plot absurd, the action stilted. I made it to page eighty-four, and that is that! Actually the best part of the book, up to where I gave up, concerned an arms deal gone bad. Even there, the writing was poor.
Well-written, but..........2004-07-30
Cadigan is a writer of enormous talent. In this book she shows her talent for realistic characters, vivid description, and out-of-this-world settings. On top of all that, I'd have to rate her dialogue as some of the best out there - she's funny, and will engage you at every turn.
Unfortunately, this book came off as being rather convoluted. The ending was especially difficult to follow. It was wonderful to read, mind you, but plot-wise I have absolutely no idea what happened. There also seems to be an overall lack of action, which isn't always a bad thing, but here it leaves a distinct sense that something is missing.
Dervish is Amazing.......2004-05-24
Dervish is Digital is one of my favorite sci fi books. Itis classified by some as "cyberpunk." I don't really know what that genre means, but I recommend Dervish for anyone who enjoys a fast-paced, technology-heavy, mystery story. Konstantin, the main character, is a woman all women can relate to. Tough yet sensitive, aware of her flaws, she is human and engaging.
The world Cadigan created is mesmerizing. Nothing is what it seems. Her imagination is so fertile, her descriptive writing skills so honed, that you squirm with delight at each new incantation. This book is a puzzle, and not a breeze-through read, but it is immensely intriguing and has a smashing, powerful ending.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Extrapolation, published by Extrapolation on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 7928 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Imaginable futures: Tea from an Empty Cup and the notion of nation.
Author: Graham J. Murphy
Publication:
Extrapolation (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Extrapolation
Volume: 45
Issue: 2
Page: 145(17)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
Perfect book for Re-building your Church.......2007-05-09
After a fire destroyed much of our church, a friend sent this book to our congregation. After reading it, I ordered copies for our entire Board to read. What a great guide for re-building, re-ordering, remodeling a church.
Church Architecture - a public image of the people inside........2005-08-22
The author of Re-Pitching The Tent, the Very Reverend Richard Giles, is a liberal member of a liberal Diocese - the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The problem we conservative Episcopalians have with our liberal leadership is that from our point of view its actions are indistinguishable from the actions of a very subtle enemy who hates our church and wants it destroyed. We have to trust them when they tell us their motives are based on love rather than hate.
I am a conservative Episcopalian deeply suspicious of our church's leadership. Yet I urge conservative Episcopalians like me to read this book carefully and with an open-mind. Reverend Giles is entirely convincing as to his motivations - and at least 80% convincing as to the various plans of action and recommendations he proposes in this book.
As much as I love our traditions, liturgy, 1928 Book Of Common Prayer, architectural splendors of our past, our saints, and our martyrs; Reverend Giles presents some truly glorious and beautiful modern worship spaces full of photographs and descriptions and plans of action which I believe might just work to save our dying church. His plans of action are a radical departure from anything I've ever associated with the Episcopal Church. And yet he is convincing in his arguments for them - and his hope for our future. He roots his arguments solidly in the distant past of our Biblical foundations. He shows appreciation and love for the Anglican liturgy of the past - and most importantly he does not engage in subtle slander of the Anglican people like so many liberals do. Richard Giles appears to love the Anglican people and want the best for our future and the future of our church.
Additionally, this is a remarkable book on church architecture. If it were only that, I would still recommend it highly. But it is more. Re-Pitching The Tent is a manifesto of a man desperate to save the Episcopal Church from old fogies like me who would keep it as a museum. Reverend Giles' point is that "our churches are not museums - they are living, breathing, growing congregations. Giles is an Englishman steeped in English learning and vocabulary. His prose is nicely written and his points have sparkle.
Now to the problems I have with this book. Giles is a fundamentalist in his view that our worship spaces be re-ordered. Sometimes he is inflexible and un-reflective to the point of being scary. He gives as an exercise for the reader to identify "from what quarter in your own community is opposition to change likely to come." This question sounds to me like a Communist Party training book. Can't we at least have an intelligent discussion about the value of change before abandoning everything we have always thought of as Episcopalian? Let's not treat people who disagree as enemies.
One conservative assumption the Reverend makes implicitly is not surprising - namely no mention of dispensing with the episcopate or with the church itself. Putting the church before the people is a bias inherent in being professionally tied to a church. Yet the end of the church seems to me not an unreasonable consideration. The Body of Christ has many forms of worship - mostly arising though ancestral tradition. To the extent that the Anglican Church is the traditional church of the Anglican people, then when the Anglican people disappear, shouldn't their church as well? The real problem with the modern Christian church is that it has lost its fertility - even the pagans understand the importance of fertility. Our modern feminized Christian churches are barren - like the people inside.
The Episcopal priesthood needs to realize that a church which does not promote marriage and children among its congregants is at odds with nature and will soon be a dead church. That issue notwithstanding, read this book - it is very good.
Even traditionalists will learn a thing or two!.......2002-05-07
Richard Giles' "Re-Pitching the Tent" will be a read that is very intimidating to the traditional Anglican/Catholic/Lutheran who is used to (and attached to!) the traditional Sanctuary, Chancel, Choir, Nave arrangement of our Churches. The Parish I pastor meets in a small space, so making the most of what we have is important. Giles shows us through his insight ways of making your space count, and how to arrange for worship in such a manner that we express a theology that highlights the participation of the people of the Congregation while still having a very distinct president of the Assembly to lead the Liturgy.
Not all traditionalists will find themseves warming to his ideas at once, but I think, when they compare this book to the modes of the early Church, they may well find some use for the author's suggestions. I know our parish did!
Excellent Resource.......2002-01-30
Recently we had the opportunity to meet Richard Giles as he was in our city giving a talk about "Re-pitching the Tent". Our firm specializes in religious facility design and we were anxious to learn what Richard Giles had to offer on the subject of liturgical space. We came away from the workshop with even more enthusiasm for our opportunities to design sacred space. We ordered his book ... and have been using it as a reference in designing two new Anglican churches. This book is not just for architects but for anyone who is interested in the Chirstian Community and the future of the Church.
Lively and thought-provoking.......2001-10-27
This book is about looking at outmoded church spaces to see what can be done to meet the needs of contemporary worshippers. Written out of a British context, using British examples and pictures (these pictures are great) the book translates quite well to the American scene, where there is a similar problem. My church in Boston chose to build a series of adult education sessions around the book, and Giles has constructed his text with this use in mind. There is an appendix that acts as a "teacher's guide." What is brilliant about the book is that he discusses pragmatics, but he provides the basis for a theological reflection on the part of the congregation so that they have a faith-basis for whatever plant and programmatic renovations they decide to make.
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