C’est un roman-voyage, roman-journal qui s’étend d’Avignon en France jusqu’au fins fond de la Sybérie: il raconte un grand amour. Il parle d’une rencontre entre un artiste qui, ayant commencé sa vie dans un orphélinat, est passé par le grand banditisme et a finit par arriver dans le show-business, et une écrivaine qui n’a pas voulu passer à côté de son histoire et, du coup, à fini par écrire la sienne.Et, surtout, c’est un roman qui parle de la foi. L’histoire est réelle.
Contents Include: Book 1: Of writing Lives in General, and Particularly of Pamela - Of Mr. Joseph Andrews, His Birth, Parentage, Education and Great Endowments - Of Mr. Abraham Adams the Curate, Mrs. Slipslop the Chambermaid and Others - What Happened after their Journey to London - The Death of Sir Thomas Booby - How Joseph Andrews writ a Letter to His Sister Pamela - A Dialogue Between the Lady and her Maid - The Interview Between the Lady and Joseph - What Passed Between the Lady and Mrs Slipslop - Joseph Writes another letter - Of Several New matters not Expected - Containing many Surprising Adventures - What happened to Joseph During his Sickness at the Inn - Being Very Full of Adventures which Succeeded each Other at the Inn - Showing how Mrs. Tow-Wouse was a Little Mollified - The Escape of the Thief, Mr. Adam's Disappointment - A Pleasant Discourse between the two Parsons and the Bookseller - The History of Betty the Chambermaid and an Account of what Occasioned the Violent Scene in the Preceding Chapter - Book II: Of Divisions in Authors - A Surprising Instance of Mr. Adam's Short memory - The Opinion of Two Lawyers Concerning the Same Gentleman - The History of Leonora, or the Unfortunate Jilt - A Dreadful Quarrel which Happened at the Inn - Conclusion of the Unfortunate Jilt - A Very Short Chapter in which Parson Adams went a Great Way - A Notable Dissertation by Mr. Abraham Adams - In Which the Gentleman Discants on Bravery - Giving an Account of the Strange Catastrophe preceding - What happened to them While Before the Justice - A Very Delightful Adventure - A Dissertation Concerning High People and Low People - An Interview Between Parson Adams and Parson Trulliber - AnAdventure, the Consequence of a new Instance which parson Adams gave of his Forgetfulness - In Which Mr. Adams gave a much Greater Instance of the Honest simplicity of his Heart, than of his Experience in the Ways of this World - A Dialogue Between Mr. Abraham Adams and his Host - Book III: Matter Prefatory in Praise of Biography - A Night Scene, Wherein Several Wonderful Adventures Befel Adams and his Fellow-Travellers - In Which the Gentleman Realtes the History of his Life - A Description of Mr. Wilson's Way of Living. The Tragical Adventure of the Dod and other Grave Matters - A Disputation on Schools held on the Road - Moral Reflections by Joseph Andrews - A Scene of Rosting, very Nicely Adapted to the Present taste and Times - Which some Readers will think too Short and others too Long - Containing as Surprising and Bloody Adventures as can Be found in this or Perhaps any other Authentic History - A Discourse Between the Poet and the Player - The Exhortations of Parson Adams to his Friend in Affliction - More Adventures which we Hope will Please the reader - A Dialogue Between Mr. Abraham Adams and Mr. Peter Pounce - Book IV: The Arrival of Lady Booby and the rest at Booby-Hall - A Dialogue Between Mr. Abraham Adams and the Lady Booby - What Passed Between the Lady and Lawyer Scout - The Arrival of Mr. Booby and his Lady - Containing Justice Business - Of Which you are Desired to Read no More than you Like - Philosophical Reflections - A Discourse between Mr. Adams, Mrs. Adams, Joseph and Fanny - A Visit which the Polite Lady Booby and Her Polite Friend Paid to the Parson - The History of the Two friends - In Which the History is Continued - Where the Good-Natured Reader will seeSomething which will Give him No Great Pleasure - The History Returns to the Lady Booby - Containing Several Curious Night-Adventures - The Arrival of Gaffar and Gammar Andrews - Being the last, in Which this True History is Brought to a happy Conclusion
"Nadja, " originally published in France in 1928, is the first and perhaps best Surrealist romance ever written, a book which defined that movement's attitude toward everyday life. The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in teh city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work -- pictures of various "surreal" people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in naja's presence and which inspire him to mediate on their reality or lack of it. "The Nadja of the book is a girl, but, like Bertrand Russell's definition of electricity as "not so much a thing as a way things happen, " Nadja is not so much a person as the way she makes people behave. She has been described as a state of mind, a feeling about reality, k a kind of vision, and the reader sometimes wonders whether she exists at all. yet it is Nadja who gives form and structure to the novel.
One evening some friends were gathered at the home of one of our most celebrated writers. Having dined sumptuously, they were discussing murder—apropos of what, I no longer remember probably apropos of nothing. Only men were present: moralists, poets, philosophers and doctors—thus everyone could speak freely, according to his whim, his hobby or his idiosyncrasies, without fear of suddenly seeing that expression of horror and fear which the least startling idea traces upon the horrified face of a notary. I—say notary, much as I might have said lawyer or porter, not disdainfully, of course, but in order to define the average French mind. With a calmness of spirit as perfect as though he were expressing an opinion upon the merits of the cigar he was smoking, a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences said: “Really—I honestly believe that murder is the greatest human preoccupation, and that all our acts stem from it... “ We awaited the pronouncement of an involved theory, but he remained silent. “Absolutely!” said a Darwinian scientist, “and, my friend, you are voicing one of those eternal truths such as the legendary Monsieur de La Palisse discovered every day: since murder is the very bedrock of our social institutions, and consequently the most imperious necessity of civilized life. If it no longer existed, there would be no governments of any kind, by virtue of the admirable fact that crime in general and murder in particular are not only their excuse, but their only reason for being. We should then live in complete anarchy, which is inconceivable. So, instead of seeking to eliminate murder, it is imperative that it be cultivated with intelligence and perseverance. I know no better culture medium than law.” Someone protested. “Here, here!” asked the savant, “aren't we alone, and speaking frankly?” “Please!” said the host, “let us profit thoroughly by the only occasion when we are free to express our personal ideas, for both I, in my books, and you in your turn, may present only lies to the public.” The scientist settled himself once more among the cushions of his armchair, stretched his legs, which were numb from being crossed too long and, his head thrown back, his arms hanging and his stomach soothed by good digestion, puffed smoke−rings at the ceiling: “Besides,” he continued, “murder is largely self−propagating. Actually, it is not the result of this or that passion, nor is it a pathological form of degeneracy. It is a vital instinct which is in us all—which is in all organized beings and dominates them, just as the genetic instinct. And most of the time it is especially true that these two instincts fuse so well, and are so totally interchangeable, that in some way or other they form a single and identical instinct, so that we no longer may tell which of the two urges us to give life, and which to take it—which is murder, and which love. I have been the confidant of an honorable assassin who killed women, not to rob them, but to ravish them. His trick was to manage things so that his sexual climax coincided exactly with the death−spasm of the woman: 'At those moments,' he told me, 'I imagined I was a God, creating a world!”
Abbé Sicard was a French revolutionary priest and an innovator of French and American sign language. He enjoyed a meteoric rise from Toulouse and Bordeaux to Paris and, despite his non-conformist tendencies, he escaped the guillotine. In fact, the revolutionaries acknowledged his position and during the Terror of 1794, they made him the director of the first school for the deaf. Later, he became a member of the first Ecole Normale, the National Institute, and the Académie Française. He is recognized today as having developed Enlightenment theories of pantomime, "signing,' and a form of "universal language" that later spread to Russia, Spain, and America. This is the first book-length biography of Sicard published in any language since 1873, despite Sicard’s international renown. This thoughtful, engaging work explores French and American sign language and deaf studies set against the backdrop of the French Revolution and Napoleon.
Since the late nineteenth century, the Theosophical Society has been a central force in the movement now known as the New Age. Just as the Communist Party was considered 'old hat' by peace activists in the '60s, so the Theosophical Society was looked upon by many in the 'spiritual revolution' of those years as cranky, uninteresting, and passé. But the Society, like the Party, was always there, and-despite its relatively few members-always better organized than anybody else. Since then, the Society's influence has certainly not waned. It plays an important role in today's global interfaith movement, and, since the flowering of the New Age in the '70s, has established increasingly intimate ties with the global elites. And its various spinoffs, such as Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Summit Lighthouse, and Benjamin Crème's continuing attempt to lead a 'World Teacher Maitreya' onto the global stage-just as the Society tried to do in the last century with Krishnamurti-continue to send waves through the sea of 'alternative' spiritualities. Guénon shows how our popular ideas of karma and reincarnation actually owe more to Theosophy than to Hinduism or Buddhism, provides a clear picture of the charlatanry that was sometimes a part of the Society's modus operandi, and gives the early history of the Society's bid for political power, particularly its role as an agent of British imperialism in India. It is fitting that this work should finally appear in English just at this moment, when the influence of pseudo-esoteric spiritualities on global politics is probably greater than ever before in Western history.
