Read diary: Relive twelve literary classics

Author: (Canada) Alberto Manguel, translated by Yang Lixin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Alberto Manguel is a private reader. A Reading Diary is a crystallization of the author's thoughts, associations, and memories recorded in diary form from June 2002 to May 2003, where he revisits a beloved work each month. In this book, the works he "loved long and deeply" and "revisited word by word with the power of the mind" include Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote from Spain, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Affinity from Germany, H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau from the United Kingdom, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four, Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, andFran?ois-Chrétien de Chateaubriand's Memoirs from Beyond the Grave from France, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from Canada, Dino Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe from Italy, and Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book from Japan, among others. In addition to these works, the diary form allows the author to remain faithful to the rich emotions and fleeting associations he experienced while reading, freely and fluidly recording the of a thoughtful and sensitive reader's heart. Due to the author's broad cultural perspective and deep reading experience, characters, plots, settings, a single sentence, or even a single word in the works often evoke his profound reflections, while domestic life and travel experiences also stir his rich historical memories. The author seems to draw upon them effortlessly, bringing to the reader the political ideals of ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, the story of Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly, the life insights of an Iraqi poet, the picaresque novel Tom Sawyer, the verses of Baudelaire, the transformed Gregor Samsa in Kafka's works, and land surveyors, all rushing before the reader's eyes. This scattered yet all-encompassing style gives readers a sense of dazzling brilliance and inexhaustible beauty. Meanwhile, the author's recollections of his childhood and descriptions of his interactions with Borges and other friends evoke the fading dust of forgotten memories, bringing a sense of historical to the reader and stirring feelings of closeness and emotion. The author of this book, Alberto Manguel, is a renowned Canadian novelist, translator, literary critic, and publisher. This book is another masterpiece by him following A History of Reading. The tranquil and rustic pastoral life has made Manguel a Don Juan who navigates the vast ocean of books, following the call of his heart. With a year's time, he revisits twelve beloved literary classics and expresses his life reflections through the interplay between the pages and beyond. Throughout the book, we often feel the author's love for nature and humanity, his concern for public events, and his strong sense of social justice. The central themes of the book include reflections on the roots of racial hatred, anxieties about the of human ambition due to technological development, and critiques of authoritarian and tyrannical regimes in history and reality. The author's the major issues in the real world. Therefore, Manguel chooses to resist fate through reading and insists on the right of intellectuals to question history, reality, and life.