Classical
Lilith
I have already talked about “At the Back of the North Wind”, by the Scotsman George MacDonald, written in 1871, which has Death as its protagonist. The Lilith saga, composed around 1895 and declined in the three novels “Beyond the Looking Glass”, “Lilith” and “The House of Regret”, takes up the figure of the female demon associated with the wind. The protagonist of the trilogy is Lilith, from Akkadian Lil-itu, lady of the air, a creature connected to the storm and the cat. In Mesopotamian culture, Lilith was a demon, whom the Jews borrowed during the Babylonian captivity and transformed into Adam’s first wife, disowned for refusing to obey her husband. She has always had negative characteristics, of a nocturnal, witchy, adulterous and lustful feminine. In the nineteenth century, however, with the emancipation of women, she came to represent the strong woman who no longer submits to men, she is re-evaluated by modern neo-pagan cults and assimilated to the Great Mother.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
Iceland, Finland and the myths dear to Tolkien
Thingvellir: behind the black basalt buttress, in front the immense lawn covered with lichen where the Althing, the open-air parliament of Icelanders, was held. In the cold, sulfur-smelling air, in this land of asphalt-colored lava, between pumice dunes and puffs of geysers, it is necessary to classify memories and mental associations that pile up confusedly in our heads.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
The King is Naked
That the publishing world is not transparent, that the little fish are devoured by the big ones, that the good ones, if not famous for other reasons, have no chance to be published and known, that some writers produce bullshit but sell millions of copies thanks to hype, that literary cases are assembled at the desk, that books are directly commissioned by publishers to prominent personalities and then written by ghost writers, by now we all know and those who do not know are not the least familiar with this reality and still live, lucky them, in the world of dreams.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
George MacDonald, "At the Back of the North Wind"
George MacDonald, known for his fairy tales and his fantastic novels, moved into that pre-Raphaelite atmosphere of which William Morris was a part and entered the context of acquaintances that included Mary Shelley, John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray , Mark Twain (whom he was friends with) and CS Lewis.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
Pinocchio
The Florentine Carlo Lorenzini (1826–1890), better known to the public of adults and children with the name of Collodi, borrowed from his mother’s town, was a patriot of the wars of Independence but also a bookseller, reviewer, publisher. He translated French fairy tales, including Perrault’s famous ones.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
Louisa May Alcott, "Little Women"
The region around Boston was simple and genuine countryside. “There,” says Cunliff, “the aspiring writer could live on very little, cultivating a piece of land to get what he needed for his livelihood […] and making an occasional trip to Boston to borrow books, or meeting with a publisher. […] it was in that circle of cultured and intimately connected communities, around Boston, that the phenomenon of transcendentalism appeared, an imprecise term hardly attributable to any of the most important figures of the time. “
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
Joining the Jungvolk
The day was bound to come. Ever since Franz had left, it seemed there had been a mental countdown of the days before young Ernst should be forced to leave home. Each year left to remain was a treasure, each moral discussion a memory for a lifetime. As his father had hoped, Ernst held true to everything that was taught him, while under his father’s roof.
By Erica Nicolay4 years ago in Fiction
Wuthering Heights
At the age of three, Emily Brontë had already lost her mother and was growing up in memory of her two missing little sisters, Maria and Elisabeth. Her aunt raised her, Charlotte, Anne and Patrick (called Branwell from her maternal surname) with Wesleyan methodism, in family reunions a common theme was the account of uplifting deaths. The father was Irish, the mother from Cornwall, more than English they were Celts, and this legacy of myths and folklore, combined with the wild nature in which they grew up, enhanced the imagination of the siblings.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Fiction
