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raulbime's review against another edition
5.0
Marguerite Yourcenar, as always, writes magnificently regardless of the subject. In this posthumous collection of essays, tributes, and fragments she delves into quite the range. From Japanese uprisings and heroes; to the effects of time and elements on art, particularly sculptures; to animal cruelty; to the origins of Christianity in England; to the crucial elements of the historical novel in her works, and other subjects. It's always illuminating and entertaining reading her work, especially when it deals with the historical.
One of the fascinating bits from this collection was her abandoned project of the three Elizabeths of Central Europe. Three women who share a name: Saint Elizabeth, who abandons her noble station to serve the sick and poor; Elizabeth Báthory, infamous serial killer and (suspected) witch, and Empress Elizabeth, beautiful, narcissistic, youth-obsessed, and later assassinated, royal. Yourcenar aimed to create a work linking all three women, each separated from the other by three centuries but all sharing their Hungarian connection. A project she abandoned and which I wish had been realized and completed, but the essay on this abandoned project, while a tease of what could have been, was wonderful compensation.
Some of my favourite quotes from Sistine, pieces where Marguerite as Michaelangelo contemplates on life, love, death, and grief:
"Oh, I know that all that is only an illusion like the rest, and there is no future. Man, who invented time, then invented eternity for contrast; but the negation of time is as vain as time itself. There is no past or future, only a series of successive presents, a road perpetually destroyed and continued, upon which we all go forward."
"No one possesses anyone (even sinners cannot achieve that), and since art is the only true possession, it is less a matter of possessing than of re-creating a person."
"We love because we are not able to endure being alone. For the same reason, we fear death."
"This, we begin to fear that our renunciation has been a sin against ourselves, and our desire, lacking an outlet, takes on the monstrous aspect of everything that has never existed. Of all man's regrets, perhaps the cruelest is that for the unachieved."
This review has grown longer than intended. But I must finish it with this beautiful fragment from the Written in a Garden pieces:
"Your body, composed three-quarters of water plus a few terrestrial minerals, a small handful. And this great flame within you, whose nature you do not comprehend. And within your lungs, captured and recaptured continuously within the thoracic cage, air, that lovely stranger without whom you cannot live."
One of the fascinating bits from this collection was her abandoned project of the three Elizabeths of Central Europe. Three women who share a name: Saint Elizabeth, who abandons her noble station to serve the sick and poor; Elizabeth Báthory, infamous serial killer and (suspected) witch, and Empress Elizabeth, beautiful, narcissistic, youth-obsessed, and later assassinated, royal. Yourcenar aimed to create a work linking all three women, each separated from the other by three centuries but all sharing their Hungarian connection. A project she abandoned and which I wish had been realized and completed, but the essay on this abandoned project, while a tease of what could have been, was wonderful compensation.
Some of my favourite quotes from Sistine, pieces where Marguerite as Michaelangelo contemplates on life, love, death, and grief:
"Oh, I know that all that is only an illusion like the rest, and there is no future. Man, who invented time, then invented eternity for contrast; but the negation of time is as vain as time itself. There is no past or future, only a series of successive presents, a road perpetually destroyed and continued, upon which we all go forward."
"No one possesses anyone (even sinners cannot achieve that), and since art is the only true possession, it is less a matter of possessing than of re-creating a person."
"We love because we are not able to endure being alone. For the same reason, we fear death."
"This, we begin to fear that our renunciation has been a sin against ourselves, and our desire, lacking an outlet, takes on the monstrous aspect of everything that has never existed. Of all man's regrets, perhaps the cruelest is that for the unachieved."
This review has grown longer than intended. But I must finish it with this beautiful fragment from the Written in a Garden pieces:
"Your body, composed three-quarters of water plus a few terrestrial minerals, a small handful. And this great flame within you, whose nature you do not comprehend. And within your lungs, captured and recaptured continuously within the thoracic cage, air, that lovely stranger without whom you cannot live."
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