The Woman Watching by Paola Capriolo
What is the nature of the actor's mask? At what point do performer and performance merge? Vulpius, a much admired young actor in a provincial rep company, develops an obssession with an unknown spectator whose gaze seems only for him, at first kindling fresh fervour in his mastery of each role, then leaving him a slave to artistic perfection. With philosophical elegance and black macabre sense of comedy, Paola Capriolo draws the reader deep into obssession, exploring the most compelling recesses of the theatrical experience where ritual and stylisation run rampant. Dark questions emerge about the power of representation and the dangers of sacrificing life to art. The Woman Watching is a work of art at the very centre of the European literary culture: a culture it wears lightly and with elegance.
Capriolo's forte is the exquisite philosophical game played with corrosive scepticism * TLS *
This is the kind of intellectually elegant book that we just do not seem to write on this side of the channel * Sunday Times *
The dangers of art are part of what art isBoth as novelist and essayist Capriolo has no doubt about the validity of fictional ironies and artificialities. In this novel she achieves a new lucidity in her juxtaposition of mirroring looks and in her playing of construction and deconstruction against each other * New York Times Book Review *
This is the kind of intellectually elegant book that we just do not seem to write on this side of the channel * Sunday Times *
The dangers of art are part of what art isBoth as novelist and essayist Capriolo has no doubt about the validity of fictional ironies and artificialities. In this novel she achieves a new lucidity in her juxtaposition of mirroring looks and in her playing of construction and deconstruction against each other * New York Times Book Review *
Born in Milan in 1962, Paola Capriolo is one of the most respected of her generation of Italian writers. Her novel, Il Nocciero, won the 1990 Rapallo Prize. Her translated novels include Floria Tosca, a New York Times notable book and The Woman Watching. In 1991 Paola Capriolo was awarded the Förder Prize in Germany for her work. She is a journalist and translator.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781852425203 |
| ISBN 10 | 1852425202 |
| Title | The Woman Watching |
| Author | Paola Capriolo |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Profile Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1998-06-01 |
| Number of pages | 224 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |