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susannes_pagesofcrime's review
4.0
3.5 rounded up.
I had never read Javier Marias before so didn't know what to expect. For the most part I didn't particularly enjoy these portraits except for the final two on Oscar Wilde and Emily Bronte. It is for those two essays that I have given the higher star rating as they were what I would like to read more of about other authors.
I had never read Javier Marias before so didn't know what to expect. For the most part I didn't particularly enjoy these portraits except for the final two on Oscar Wilde and Emily Bronte. It is for those two essays that I have given the higher star rating as they were what I would like to read more of about other authors.
chahna's review
4.0
4.5
These were just 5 mini-portraits of famous writers including Oscar Wilde and Emily Bronte. I love reading about writers and their lives and these portraits was ever so illuminating and fun. I loved it.
These were just 5 mini-portraits of famous writers including Oscar Wilde and Emily Bronte. I love reading about writers and their lives and these portraits was ever so illuminating and fun. I loved it.
shelfadmirer's review
4.0
Five stories about 5 great authors, that has been narrated with perfection. Usually a description of sorts of author's habits, nature and life can get a bit boring, but this book wasn't. Exceptional writing.
balancinghistorybooks's review
4.0
Javier Marias' Madame du Deffand and the Idiots sounded like such an interesting concept. This volume presents 'five sparkling, irreverent brief portraits of famous literary figures (including libertines, eccentrics and rogues) from Spain's greatest living writer'. All of these pieces are taken from Written Lives, which was published in Spain in 2009, and all have been translated by Margaret Jull Costa.
The essays here are written variously about Madame du Deffand, Vladimir Nabokov, Djuna Barnes, Oscar Wilde, and Emily Bronte. I was particularly interested to read the final three, all writers whom I adore. This is the first time which I have read Marias' work, and I found it rather amusing and intriguing. The first essay, for instance, begins: 'Madame du Deffand's life was clearly far too long for someone who considered that her greatest misfortune was to have been for at all.' On discussing the unusual names used in Djuna Barnes' family, 'which, in many cases, do not even give a clue as to the gender of the person bearing them' he writes: 'Perhaps it is understandable that, on reaching adulthood, some members of the Barnes family adopted banal nicknames like Bud or Charlie.' All of these pieces are rather short, and quite fascinating - and sometimes enlightening - to read. Marias seems to really capture his subjects throughout, and shines a spotlight on a handful of quite unusual people. Madame du Deffand and the Idiots has certainly piqued my interest to read more of Marias' work, and soon.
The essays here are written variously about Madame du Deffand, Vladimir Nabokov, Djuna Barnes, Oscar Wilde, and Emily Bronte. I was particularly interested to read the final three, all writers whom I adore. This is the first time which I have read Marias' work, and I found it rather amusing and intriguing. The first essay, for instance, begins: 'Madame du Deffand's life was clearly far too long for someone who considered that her greatest misfortune was to have been for at all.' On discussing the unusual names used in Djuna Barnes' family, 'which, in many cases, do not even give a clue as to the gender of the person bearing them' he writes: 'Perhaps it is understandable that, on reaching adulthood, some members of the Barnes family adopted banal nicknames like Bud or Charlie.' All of these pieces are rather short, and quite fascinating - and sometimes enlightening - to read. Marias seems to really capture his subjects throughout, and shines a spotlight on a handful of quite unusual people. Madame du Deffand and the Idiots has certainly piqued my interest to read more of Marias' work, and soon.
dorritx's review
4.0
Dudes why are these so short
Anyhow I enjoyed these deliciously, portraits of writers in their deaths and their enlarged lives. What are they doing now?
Anyhow I enjoyed these deliciously, portraits of writers in their deaths and their enlarged lives. What are they doing now?
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