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O Caledonia de Elspeth Barker

O Caledonia

Autor Elspeth Barker
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 20 sep 2022
In the tradition of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-19th century?featuring a new introduction by Maggie O'Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet.

Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother's black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw…

​Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and loneliness, Barker's ill-fated young heroine Janet turns to literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant. The family's motto?Moriens sed Invictus (Dying but Unconquered)?is a well-suited epitaph for wild and courageous Janet, whose fierce determination to remain steadfastly herself makes her one of the most unforgettable protagonists in contemporary literature.
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Paperback (3) 4940 lei  3-5 săpt. +2807 lei  7-13 zile
  Orion Publishing Group – 30 sep 2021 4940 lei  3-5 săpt. +2807 lei  7-13 zile
  Scribner – 20 sep 2022 8990 lei  3-5 săpt.
  Orion Publishing Group – 11 mai 2026 5442 lei  Precomandă

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781668004616
ISBN-10: 1668004615
Pagini: 208
Dimensiuni: 142 x 213 x 17 mm
Greutate: 0.18 kg
Editura: Scribner

Notă biografică

Elspeth Barker; Introduction by Maggie O'Farrell

Descriere

Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
'I once decided to become friends with someone on the sole basis that she named O Caledonia as her favourite book'
Maggie O'Farrell

'A sparky, funny work of genius and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th Century'
Ali Smith

'Funny, surprising, exquisitely written and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing up'
David Nicholls

'A wonderful oddity - brief, vivid, eccentric, written with ferocious zest and black humour'
Penelope Lively

At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother's black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the sixteen years of Janet's short life.

A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll's house.

A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin Lila.

A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination.

A W&N Essential with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell

Recenzii

A sparky, funny work of genius about class, romanticism, social tradition and literary tradition, and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th century
A surreal, hilarious and dark story of a troubled adolescence deep in the wilds of Scotland
Elspeth Barker's is a wholly original literary voice. O CALEDONIA, first published 20 years ago, reads as freshly now as then. Steeped in classical allusions, rich in Scottish - and natural - history, fantastical in its highly wrought characters, this coming-of-age-novella is as passionately intense as it is wittily acerbic... Propelled by the sheer force of words, the horrors and humours plunge on, observed by an eye both youthful and perspicacious... The reader feels unalloyed joy, and occasional winces, on every page
This is an extraordinary novel: original, beautiful yet tough (Barker loves jaggy, spiky words such as "monkey puzzle", "azaleas", "horizon", anything with a "z" in it), with a sympathetic outsider of a heroine whose tragic fate is depicted on the very first page, puncturing any kind of narrative tension but capturing our attention nevertheless. Few see colour in a grey Scottish day the way Barker does, when a dying winter sun "sheds an unearthly glory; shafting drifts of crimson, green and blue, alive with whirling atoms of dust ..." And yet this darkly magical tale has been forgotten, displaced in the pantheon of great Scottish writing by other, supposedly tougher, work... Barker's love of the classics, her focus on mothers and daughters, and her remarkable evocation of landscape, should mark her out as one of Scotland's principal writers, but fashion and the politics of literary movements have skimmed over her.
An absolute sumptuous treat of a book
O Caledonia is a Gothic coming-of-age story, the Brontes and Poe via Dodie Smith and Edward Gorey. Funny, surprising, exquisitely written -and brilliant on the smelly, absurd, harsh business of growing-up.
O Caledonia is an absolute freak show of brilliance; dark and hilarious and dreadful in the best way imaginable. I wish I'd written it.