Research Catalog

Title

The story begins : essays on literature / Amos Oz ; translated by Maggie Bar-Tura.

Author

Oz, Amos.

Publication

New York : Harcourt Brace, [1999], ©1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

vi, 118 pages; 21 cm

Summary

• In these playful and perceptive commentaries, Oz shares his rich and rewarding experience as novelist, critic, and teacher. As he analyzes the opening sections of novels and short stories by such writers as Gogol, Kafka, Chekhov, Garcia Marquez, Raymond Carver, and with passing reference to other classics of world literature, Oz instructs, challenges, guides, and he entertains. Who hasn't been through the experience of sitting in front of a blank page, with its toothless mouth grinning at you?
• Some great writers write and rewrite the first sentence of a book a hundred times and never get beyond it. Others, presumably, give up altogether and, perhaps in despair, decide to begin just as it comes to them.
• Oz explores with passion and wit why beginnings are as important as endings. He highlights opening paragraphs in which authors make promises they may not deliver, or deliver promises in unexpected ways, or deliver more than they have promised. It is a game that miraculously and playfully engages both writer and reader.

Uniform Title

Matḥilim sipur. English

Alternative Title

Matḥilim sipur.

Subjects

• Israeli fiction > History and criticism
• Fiction > Technique
• Openings (Rhetoric)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

Introduction: But What Actually Existed Here Before the Big Bang? -- The Imperceptible Progress of Shade: On the Beginning of Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane -- Who Has Come?: On the Beginning of "In the Prime of Her Life" by S. Y. Agnon -- With an Expression of Very Respectable Importance: On the Beginning of Gogol's "The Nose" -- A Log in a Freshet: On the Beginning of Kafka's "A Country Doctor" -- Huge Losses: On the Beginning of Chekhov's "Rothschild's Fiddle" -- The Heat and the Day and the Wind: On the Beginning of S. Yizhar's Novel Mikdamot -- Into Mother's Bosom: On Several Beginnings in Elsa Morante's History: A Novel -- How Was It Possible for a Cow to Get onto the Balcony: On the Beginning of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch -- Take It Outside Before I Throw Up: On the Beginning of Raymond Carver's Story "Nobody Said Anything" -- From Tnuva to Monaco: On the Beginning of Yaakov Shabtai's Story "A Private and Very Awesome Leopard" -- Conclusion: Leisurely Pleasure.

ISBN

0151002975 (alk. paper)

LCCN

98035353

OCLC

ocm39627529

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries