The second volume in the beloved novelist Marie-Claire Blais's prize-winning novel cycle - acclaimed as one of the greatest undertakings in modern Quebec fiction - reissued in a handsome A List edition. Originally published in 2001, Thunder and Light is the second volume in Marie-Claire Blais's prize-winning Soifs series, hailed as one of the greatest undertakings in modern Quebec fiction. Powered by its characters' gripping exploration of the world's dark corners, the novel is a teeming microcosm in which boundaries ...
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The second volume in the beloved novelist Marie-Claire Blais's prize-winning novel cycle - acclaimed as one of the greatest undertakings in modern Quebec fiction - reissued in a handsome A List edition. Originally published in 2001, Thunder and Light is the second volume in Marie-Claire Blais's prize-winning Soifs series, hailed as one of the greatest undertakings in modern Quebec fiction. Powered by its characters' gripping exploration of the world's dark corners, the novel is a teeming microcosm in which boundaries collapse and the extremes and contradictions that animate our times are reconciled. Blais locks us directly into the consciousness of her characters, many of whom we met in her previous novel, These Festive Nights, and many that she derives from actual news stories: Jessica, a seven-year-old attempting to beat the world record as the youngest pilot to cross the continent; Nathana�l, a teenager on death row for killing his favourite teacher; Our Lady of the Bags, a modern-day Joan of Arc who lives among Manhattan's skyscrapers and follows the voices in her head; and Caroline and Jean-Mathieu, aging artists who are fighting to come together again. One character's thoughts or actions have consequences for another 3,000 miles away who is a complete stranger to the first. This is an intricate house of cards, delicately but expertly constructed, that shocks us in its perversity and familiarity, ultimately finding hope and redemption in the most human and basic forms of art.
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Add this copy of Thunderandlight Format: Paperback to cart. $10.73, new condition, Sold by Websew Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Avenel, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by A List.
Add this copy of Thunder and Light (a List) to cart. $35.82, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by A List.
Add this copy of Thunder and Light (a List) to cart. $66.52, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by A List.
THUNDER AND LIGHT (Marie-Claire Blais--Anansi, 2001)
?Governor General?s Literary Award for Translation--2002
The Jury said:
Nigel Spencer?s translation, like Marie-Claire Blais? novel, gathers in rhythm and intensity as it draws the reader inexorably into its world. Spencer rises to the many challenges of Blais? prose with deftness and grace, teaching us to read in a new way.
Nigel Spencer becomes our guide to the labyrinth of Marie-Claire Blais? fictional world. In so doing, the translator displays the same spirit of invention as the author.
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Media review:
"The Widening Gyre"
THUNDER AND LIGHT is the sequel to THESE FESTIVE NIGHTS. [The latter] centres on a celebration; THUNDER AND LIGHT turns to death, its previews and versions and aftermaths.
. . .
Anyone who has revelled in modernism's canon--ULYSSES, and much of Gertrude Stein especially--will float into the reading rhythm...once the rhythm sets in, readers will be stunned and startled by Blais' prose. Like all true novelists, she is also a soothsayer.
. . .
In the narcissism of photographers and dancers and poets; in communities' resistance to immigrants and exiles and their origins; in the crazy hierarchies of criminals and their judges, Blais attempts to define innocence.
. . .
While documenting cases familiar from media overkill, Blais predicts cultural hotspots. In Manhattan, a street girl released carelessly from a mental institution warns of apocalypse..."and what if that lunatic's predictions weredead-on, then the city of New York was going down in floods, buildings and skyscrapers crumbling."
Blais is a writer attuned to our times.
--Lorna Jackson, QUILL & QUIRE, September 11, 2002
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