This book is an excellent introduction to what happened from the Lenin to Stalin years in the USSR. Anyone who's curious how a country meant to turn into a Socialist Democracy became a Totalitarian Tyranny will want to read this book! This book enlightens the reader on how that country was corrupted by Stalin, and it also attacks some of the myths spread about the Bolsheviks which are still propagated today ( the German gold idea, for instance ). For those who think that Stalinism is the natural outcome of Bolshevism, read this book; It dispels the myth. This book should be complemented later by books by Trotsky and Isaac Deutscher's biographical trilogy about Lenin's second-in-command as well, but all in all, a great book to start with for understanding the Russian Revolution.

The Great Mother is an absolute must-have for anyone intersted in mythology, Jungian psychology or even literary analysis.

Part I is quite heavy in termonology and complex archtypal ideas; part II is more accessable and can be read and enjoyed without part I. As a feminist, I found it fascinating to learn about the different aspects of the goddess. I especially enjoyed the chapter called "Lady of the Beasts" which discusses the different animals associated with the Great Mother and their symbolic significance. Even if you don't subcribe to Jungian psychology, this book is a fascinating look into the human mind.

Finally, there's 185 pages of photographs and drawings at the end of the book -- fascinating to thumb through!

An outstanding biography of Mehmed II and a disturbing history of his time. Historians rarely depict their subjects in such a thrilling manner as does Babinger. Everything is told: mass executions, doublecrossings, and the insatiable greed for power. This history is crucial to the better understanding of the current conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

Kerenyi's book on Prometheus is among the most exciting monographs on a single mythological figure written since the mid-twentieth century. Kerenyi reviews the origins of the myth of Prometheus in early Greek poetry and the visual arts with thought-provoking references to other mythological, artistic, and literary traditions such as the Hittite, the Roman, and the German. Kerenyi worked closely with Carl Jung (see their jointly authored Introduction to a Science of Mythology) and the Jungian interest in archetypes is strongly refelcted in the present volume on Prometheus. This book is well-researched and well-written, worth reading not only for the information that it contains about the firebearer, but also for its method of analysis.

I have used a number of introductions to the ideas of Carl Jung in my Literature and Psychology courses over the years, and Jacobi's book is the best. My students find its presentation of Jung's ideas clear and thorough.

A rich and dense book that examines the very core of what it means to be human. Handke's intricately constructed narrative works on several levels giving the reader much to digest. It's threefold structure is at first difficult to interpret, but on repeated readings one begins to understand the significance of smaller fragmented incidents scattered throughout the text. If possible one should read the original and use the dictionary as a companion, just as the protagonist Filip Kobal does. One of the best books by one of our best contemporary authors. Highly recommended.

In this essay by Valery, sea shells serve as a catalyst to introspection and investigation. Valery, through the inspection of sea shells, poses some of the most basic metaphysical questions, but in an original way. By asking these questions regarding a concrete object, Valery achieves an immediate profundity rarely reached in most philosophical treatises. And, of course, the writing is translucid and precise, furthering the case for Valery as the French Walter Pater.

This book originated from 12 radio talks given by Karl Jaspers, right after World War II. It is written in an extremely lucid and direct manner, and it is more of an introduction to the art, or process, of philosophising rather than to philosophy itself as a discipline. In this book existential philosophy, the brand of philosophy so successfuly cultivated by Jaspers, is described, so to speak, "from inside". There is hardly any analysis of philosophical terms, but rather a presentation of the inner process of approach to the metaphysical questions confronting the individual person. Jaspers belongs to the great idealist tradition, initiated by Plato, developed further by the medieval schoolmen, and lastly by Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, Soeren Kirekegaard and others. According to Jaspers the core-meaning of man's identity is his sense of freedom. Freedom is presented as an immediate datum of consciousness, as that part of man's personality which "evades all object knowledge but is always present in him as a potentiality". Irrespective of what is omitted, this book offers a subject-matter of impeccable honesty and undiluted spirituality. This is a great book superbly well written. Also, the translation by Ralph Manheim is quite masterly. It is an out and out example of what every translation should actually be: a representation in another language of the meaning and style of the original text.

Ostensibly a year's worth of notes from the writer's journal, consisting of personal reflections and diurnal observations of the author's life and environment, this book can also be construed as a novel in the form of a journal, and as such, a work of genuine innovation. Handke's miniaturist style lends itself perfectly to these discrete entries, each a completed essay or prose poem; the book is a perfect match of temperament and form, and arguably Handke's finest work to date. Some entries speak to the power of language--even in translation--to evince startlingly fresh images of time-worn subjects, e.g., trees in wind; others transform the banalities of contemporary experience, e.g., the sound of the television from a neighboring house, suburban detritus, etc., into indelible literary images. These are not rough notes but polished paragraphs in Handke's finest style. Though this book is a gift to readers with small amounts of free time or short attention spans, it has a de facto dramatic structure, central to which is the author's confinement in a hospital and relationship as a single father to his son. The work is, finally, moving as well as eloquent.

This book made Harold Bloom's Western Canon as one of the achievements of the century; it's one of the few I have read twice. Except for his controversial politics, Handke has tended to be overlooked in this country, but he deserves the attention of everyone who considers him/herself a serious reader. I consider Weight of the World optimal Handke.

Not to be a naysayer, because I know this translation has received quite a bit of critical acclaim, but Celine remains much more lucid and enjoyable in the original Marks translation, which you can probably pick up at any used book store.

I looked at a few of my favorite scenes in both books and, while Marks doesn't quite capture Celine's frenetic style, he seems to have a better sense of comic timing, and has a wonderful sense of the rhythm of the book's language. While it may not be as faithful as the Manheim, all in all, it makes for a better read.

The book itself is wonderful. I discovered this book by way of Catch-22, because Heller said this Celine was one of his major influences, and found that Journey to the End of the Night was actually a more rewarding read (if a little less funny) than Catch-22. It not only encapsulates most of Heller's ideas about sanity and war, but expands into much richer territory.

Also, a little too much has been made of the constant pessimism of the book. It isn't as soul crushing as one might think, and isn't the sort of facile hipster cynicism that a lot of books settle for. Scratch the surface of a pessimist and you'll find a disillusioned optimist. There is a strong undercurrent of humanity in this book, which I didn't always find in Catch-22. I realized this as soon as I came across the character of Alcide, who is living his "wretched life in this tropical monotony...for a little girl who was vaguely related to him, without conditions, without bargaining, with no interest except that of his own good heart."

Although the bitterness in this book can sometimes be grating, it is never nasty, stupid, all-encompassing bitterness. The only problem is finding the pockets of hope. As Celine writes, "It wouldn't be a bad idea if there were something to distinguish good men from bad."

In George Steiner's novella, The Portage to San Cristobel of A.H., Nazi hunters discover an aged Adolf Hitler living quietly in the Peruvian jungle. Their plan is to kill Hitler, however they offer him the chance to defend himself instead. He is defiant, reckless and taunts them. "I am an old man...You have made of me some kind of mad devil, the quintessence of evil, hell embodied. When I was, in truth, only a man of my time. Oh, inspired I grant you...with a nose for supreme political possibility. A master of human moods, perhaps, but a man of my time."

Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (Celine was a pseudonym) was, like Steiner's Hitler, certainly an inspired man of his time, perhaps terrifyingly so. Born in 1894 to a lowly Parisian family, he had a brutal childhood. Poor, dysfunctional, but recklessly ambitious, he longed to escape all that constrained him. He eventually found a release of sorts through the study of medicine and, after patriotically enlisting, in the trenches of the western front. He was seriously wounded and later decorated.

Celine's revulsion against his wartime experiences infused his debut, Journey to the End of Night (1934), perhaps the greatest work of nihilism, as well as one of the finest novels, of the century. The first hundred pages or so contain descriptions of the absurd carnage of war that few works, not even Erich Maria Remarque's, All Quiet on the Western Front, have matched. After the war, Celine qualified as a physician and traveled in French and Belgian colonial Africa before returning to work as a doctor among the urban poor of Paris.

Celine draws freely from his bank of experiences in Journey to the End of Night; the adventures of the hero-narrator, Fedinand Bardamu, mimic exactly those of the author himself. He travel from the "fiery furnace" of the western front to the screaming jungles of central Africa, and from New York to the slums of Paris. The engine of Celine's disgust is an irrational misanthropy. It is irrational because it is contradictory: those he scourges, he later pities; those he helps, he comes to despise.

In Ferdinand's despair at what industrialization and incipient democracy have done to the contemporary soul, we are reminded of the anguish of Nietzsche's raging free spirit, Zarathustra. Like Zarathustra, Fedinand rails against the instincts of mass man and of the "herd," then crowns himself with laughter. For without laughter he knows he is nothing. "Death is chasing you, you've always got to hurry, and while you're looking you've got to eat, and keep away from wars. That's a lot of things to do. It's no picnic."

In this astonishing book, Celine immerses the reader in a torrential flow of language--fragmented, coarse, street poetic, blackly comic and full of neologisms and ellipses. For this reason, one can only reap the full impact of Celine when he is read in the original French. He writes of suffering, debased lives and poverty with reckless abandon. His vision of humanity in thrall to its own weakness is utterly cynical. He leads his characters--Robinson, a romantic wanderer, conscripted soldiers, abused prostitutes--to the edge of the abyss, the pushes them over. As they fall we hear only the sad echo of their voices--and Celine's wild and raucous laughter.

In George Steiner's novella, The Portage to San Cristobel of A.H., Nazi hunters discover an aged Adolf Hitler living quietly in the Peruvian jungle. Their plan is to kill Hitler, however they offer him the chance to defend himself instead. He is defiant, reckless and taunts them. "I am an old man...You have made of me some kind of mad devil, the quintessence of evil, hell embodied. When I was, in truth, only a man of my time. Oh, inspired I grant you...with a nose for supreme political possibility. A master of human moods, perhaps, but a man of my time."

Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (Celine was a pseudonym) was, like Steiner's Hitler, certainly an inspired man of his time, perhaps terrifyingly so. Born in 1894 to a lowly Parisian family, he had a brutal childhood. Poor, dysfunctional, but recklessly ambitious, he longed to escape all that constrained him. He eventually found a release of sorts through the study of medicine and, after patriotically enlisting, in the trenches of the western front. He was seriously wounded and later decorated.

Celine's revulsion against his wartime experiences infused his debut, Journey to the End of Night (1934), perhaps the greatest work of nihilism, as well as one of the finest novels, of the century. The first hundred pages or so contain descriptions of the absurd carnage of war that few works, not even Erich Maria Remarque's, All Quiet on the Western Front, have matched. After the war, Celine qualified as a physician and traveled in French and Belgian colonial Africa before returning to work as a doctor among the urban poor of Paris.

Celine draws freely from his bank of experiences in Journey to the End of Night; the adventures of the hero-narrator, Fedinand Bardamu, mimic exactly those of the author himself. He travel from the "fiery furnace" of the western front to the screaming jungles of central Africa, and from New York to the slums of Paris. The engine of Celine's disgust is an irrational misanthropy. It is irrational because it is contradictory: those he scourges, he later pities; those he helps, he comes to despise.

In Ferdinand's despair at what industrialization and incipient democracy have done to the contemporary soul, we are reminded of the anguish of Nietzsche's raging free spirit, Zarathustra. Like Zarathustra, Fedinand rails against the instincts of mass man and of the "herd," then crowns himself with laughter. For without laughter he knows he is nothing. "Death is chasing you, you've always got to hurry, and while you're looking you've got to eat, and keep away from wars. That's a lot of things to do. It's no picnic."

In this astonishing book, Celine immerses the reader in a torrential flow of language--fragmented, coarse, street poetic, blackly comic and full of neologisms and ellipses. For this reason, one can only reap the full impact of Celine when he is read in the original French. He writes of suffering, debased lives and poverty with reckless abandon. His vision of humanity in thrall to its own weakness is utterly cynical. He leads his characters--Robinson, a romantic wanderer, conscripted soldiers, abused prostitutes--to the edge of the abyss, the pushes them over. As they fall we hear only the sad echo of their voices--and Celine's wild and raucous laughter.