Book of Longing

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This is both true and false for Swarup's own novel and, I think, it is an important point of reflection. The novel is about the vast expanse of the universe, but it is also about the minutest of organisms that form a micro-universe of their own. At the centre of it all is the thinking human, the history-maker, the storyteller.

Book of Longing Quotes by Leonard Cohen - Goodreads

Miller and co-screenwriter Augusta Gore have adapted the 1994 novella The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by AS Byatt, and the resulting movie, for all its assumed worldliness and gnomic wisdom about the stories humans tell themselves, is almost childlike in comparison with other, darker and more adult Byatt feature adaptations, such as Philip Haas’s Angels and Insects from 1995, and Neil LaBute’s Possession in 2002. Tilda Swinton plays a nerdy and bespectacled academic called Alithia Binnie, who specialises in the field of narratology and gets to travel the world participating in literary conferences about the structure of narrative and how it is embedded in various cultures’ languages and mindsets. (There is of course something mythic about this globalised activity that shows the now forgotten influence of campus novelist David Lodge.) Kidd’s] painstaking research and artful crafting of setting and character ensures that The Book of Longings is not just an extraordinary novel, but one with lasting power...[her] brilliance shines through on so many levels, but not the least in her masterful, reverential approach to capturing Jesus of Nazareth as a fully human young man...[ The Book of Longings] is an epic masterpiece that is a triumph of insight and storytelling. Incandescent!What a treasure.Thank you for this gem. It should be galloping across the galaxies. Or maybe not so that those of us who have run into it can keep the experience as a cultish and delectable secret!” —Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, author of The Dragonfly Seaand DustAn extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wing s. To be ignored, to be forgotten, this was the worst sadness of all,” Ana says. “I swore an oath to set down their accomplishments and praise their flourishings, no matter how small. I would be a chronicler of lost stories.” Latitudes of Longing has four interconnected stories, but each story takes place and symbolizes a particular topology. The stories are metaphorical, full of longing and covering almost every emotion known to mankind, especially hope and grief.

Book of Longing - Wikipedia

The woman speaks so softly, a breeze could fly off with her words, scattering them among the snow peaks of the Hindu Kush.... With speaking trees, mountains and reptiles, this book is one of those whose vivid descriptions will forever remain with you. Irrespective of you liking it or not. The writing is intense, and poetic. The whole novel is woven in ironies and philosophical musings. Thisdaring novel, gloriously lyrical but excitingly precise, and steeped in the flora, fauna, history, and politicsof that enthralling region between the Andaman Islands and the Tibetan plateau, gives us the sweep of human drama amongastonishingly rich natural and geographical complexity. Breathtaking.” —Ruth Padel,author of Where the Serpent Livesand Tigers in Red Weather Leonard Cohen made his name as a poet before he came to worldwide attention as a singer and songwriter. Book of Longing, his new collection of poetry, was twenty years in the making and written in Montreal, Mumbai and during his retirement in Mt Baldy. Enhanced by Cohen's own playful and provocative illustrations, these poems show the full range of one of the most influential and enigmatic writers of his generation.Leonard Cohen's poetry is... uneven. Some of the poems in this volume are wonderful little incantations. Others strike me as song lyrics-- and the unfortunate thing about song lyrics is that they tend to make horrible poetry, even if they're great lyrics, and a great lyricist Leonard Cohen undoubtedly is. And yet others are Zen-inspired pabulum that seemed fine in Allen Ginsberg's day, but now-- especially that I live in a Buddhist country, and have developed a repulsion towards Buddhism equal to my youthful repulsion towards Christianity-- strike me as a rather more exotic version of the motivational not-so-bon mots written in cursive on Precious Moments calendars at my Grandma's house in Kansas. I like a story well told in beautiful lyrical language. What I don't like is trying to involve as many issues of importance and deviate as much from the original thread so as to create an ameobic tale which puts forth its pseudopods in varying confusing directions.