Others: Positive This collection of new translations brings together the small proportion of Kafka's works that he thought worthy of publication. It includes 'Metamorphosis', his most famous work, an exploration of horrific transformation and alienation; 'Meditation', a collection of his earlier studies; 'The Judgement', written in a single night of frenzied creativity; 'The Stoker', the first chapter of a novel set in America and a fascinating occasional piece, 'The Aeroplanes at Brescia', Kafka's eyewitness account of an air display in 1909. Together, these stories reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought.
Genres: fantasy, horror, classics
Lists: …
Joris-Karl Huysmans
1884 · 134 pages · 3 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveÀ rebours (French pronunciation: [a ʁ(ə).buʁ]; translated Against Nature or Against the Grain) is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences. À rebours contains many themes that became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of "Decadent" literature, inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). In his preface for the 1903 publication of the novel, Huysmans wrote that he had the idea to portray a man "soaring upwards into dream, seeking refuge in illusions of extravagant fantasy, living alone, far from his century, among memories of more congenial times, of less base surroundings ... each chapter became the sublimate of a specialism, the refinement of a different art; it became condensed into an essence of jewellery, perfumes, religious and secular literature, of profane music and plain-chant." (Wikipedia)
What made the match, strongest first
William Hope Hodgson
1946 · 174 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveThe House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel by William Hope Hodgson. He went beyond the existing ghost story and gothic molds, synthesizing a new cosmic horror that made a huge impact on later writers of weird tales, notably H. P. Lovecraft. The two gentlemen Tonnison and Berreggnog head to a village in Ireland for a week's fishing. There they discover the ruins of a strange house and the diary of the house's former occupant, the words on its torn pages hinting at an evil far beyond anything that has existed in this world before.
What made the match, strongest first
Arthur Conan Doyle
2011 · 64 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveUne momie qui ressuscite" par Arthur Conan Doyle. Arthur Conan Doyle etait un ecrivain et medecin ecossais (1859-1930).
What made the match, strongest first
Arthur Schnitzler
1990 · 108 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveLike his Viennese contemporary Sigmund Freud, the doctor and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) was a bold pioneer in exploring the dark tangled roots of human sexuality. Arthur Schnitzler is probably most famous for La Ronde, a play too scandalous to publish or perform in his own lifetime but whose daisy-chain of couplings inspired both Max Ophuls's classic film and David Hare's modernized version, The Blue Room, which played to sell-out audiences in the West End and on Broadway. Dream Story is an equally erotic work, in which a married couple are first traumatized and then achieve a new depth of understanding by confessing to each other their sexual fantasies, dream-like adventures and might-have-beens . . . Taking us on a guided tour of Vienna's seedy cafés, red-light district, decadent villas, hospitals and morgue, Schnitzler brilliantly uncovers the violence and depravity lurking beneath the surface of civilized society. Dream Story is the inspiration for Eyes Wide Shut, co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael.
What made the match, strongest first
Juan Rulfo
1955 · 123 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveDentro de su brevedad -determinada por el rigor y la concentración expresiva-, Pedro Páramo sintetiza la mayor parte de los temas que han interesado -y afligido- siempre a los mexicanos: ese misterio nacional que el talento de Juan Rulfo ha sabido condensar por medio rural del sur de Jalisco -de Comala en particular, región inscrita ya en la mitología literia universal-; sus personajes muertos que "evasivos, reticentes, convierten en secreto el aire mismo, y se vuelven elocuentes como consecuencia de callarse."
What made the match, strongest first
William Hope Hodgson
2009 · 330 pages · 4 reviews
Others: NegativeThe Sun has gone out: the Earth is lit only by the glow of residual vulcanism. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, the Last Redoubt, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. These are held back by a Circle of energy, known as the "air clog," powered from the Earth's internal energy. For millennia, vast living shapes - the Watchers - have waited in the darkness near the pyramid: it is thought they are waiting for the inevitable time when the Circle's power finally weakens and dies. Other living things have been seen in the darkness beyond, some of unknown origins, and others that may once have been human.To leave the protection of the Circle means almost certain death, or worse, but as the story commences, the narrator establishes mind contact with an inhabitant of another, forgotten, Redoubt, and sets off into the darkness to find her.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itCompletely set the mold. Was the thing that established the pattern with me. That's the thing that made me dive hardcore into thrifting for books and basically my entire life around thrifting for books, reading the books, the high of reading Kafka for the first time.
