THE SELECTED WORKS OF DJUNA BARNES

by Djuna Barnes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 26, 1961

This book assembles some of the short stories, a play and a novelette by Djuna Parnes, an avant-garde writer whose vision is rather exclusively concerned with human wretcheaness and degradation. The short stories include, among others, The Malade, Cossation and A Night with the Horses. The novelette, which contains several episodes dealing with the same characters, is Nightwood which created considerable interest when first published in 1936. At that time T.S. Eliot wrote the introduction, here republished, in which he praised Miss Barnes for her unquestionably precise style and wit, and Edwin Muir said of her: ""her writing is more felicitous the more painful the themes she is dealing with"". The play included here is Antiphon, published in 1958 and one critic called it a ""viciously brilliant, bizarre, obscure tragedy with cruel streaks of coarseness"". As a character in one of the short stories in this collection-Aller et Retour comments- ""Life is filthy, it is also frightful"" which sets the tone for much that Djuna Barnes has written. Praised by a coterie, uncompromising bitterness suits the current climate and may have occasioned this republication of her work. She outdarkens Sartre, Camus and Beckett by a good many non-light years, and there is little humor or joie de vivre to brighten her vision. All in all it is a representative selection of her work for the following she commands as an exponent of the surrealistic-nihilistic school.

Pub Date: Dec. 26, 1961

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1961

Categories: FICTION