Books by Christopher Middleton
Selected Stories (New York Review Books Classics)
by Susan Sontag, Robert Walser, Christopher Middleton
How to place the mysterious Swiss writer Robert Walser, a humble genius who possessed one of the most elusive and surprising sensibilities in modern literature? Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G. Sebald; an amalgam, as Susan Sontag suggests in her preface to this volume, of Stevie Smith and Samuel Beckett.
This collection gathers forty-two of Walser's stories. Encompassing everything from journal entries, notes on literature, and biographical sketches to anecdotes, fables, and visions, it is an ideal introduction to this fascinating writer of whom Hermann Hesse famously declared, "If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place."
Response to a Request
Flower Days
Trousers
Two Strange Stories
Balloon Journey
Kleist in Thum
The Job Application
The Boat
A Little Ramble
Helbling's Story
The Little Berliner
Nervous
The Walk
So! "I've Got You"
Nothing at All
Kienast
Poests
Frau Wilke
The Street
Snowdrops
Winter
The She-Owl
Knocking
Titus
Vladimir
Parisian Newspapers
The Monkey
Dostoevsky's Idiot
Am I Dreaming?
The Little Tree
Stork and Porcupine
A Contribution to the Celebration of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
A Sort of Speech
A Letter to Therese Breitbach
A Village Tale
The Aviator
The Pimp
Masters and Workers
Essay on Freedom
A Biedermeier Story
The Honeymoon
Thoughts on Cezanne
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Nobody's Ezekiel
Product Description "Christopher Middleton's rare genius for exact observation and metaphysical wit has given us for over half a century now poems of such brilliant craftsmanship and exacting sensibility that a few critics only have dared to assess their magic. He is an incomparable stylist, a wry ironist, a philosopher of words. The only category in which he fits justly is that of poet."--Guy Davenport "A magnificent collection . . . from syntactical organization and vocabulary to the span of his intellectual sympathies his voice is unique." -The Guardian (of Collected Later Poems) Review "Christopher Middleton's rare genius for exact observation and metaphysical wit has given us for over half a century now poems of such brilliant craftsmanship and exacting sensibility that a few critics only have dared to assess their magic. He is an incomparable stylist, a wry ironist, a philosopher of words. The only category in which he fits justly is that of a poet."--Guy DavenportThe Guardian"Harvard Review"Christopher Middleton's rare genius for exact observation and metaphysical wit has given us for over half a century now poems of such brilliant craftsmanship and exacting sensibility that a few critics only have dared to assess their magic. He is an incomparable stylist, a wry ironist, a philosopher of words. The only category in which he fits justly is that of a poet. Guy Davenport"Middleton's work is at once rich and sparse, elegantly economic in its subtle shifts from discrete object to discrete object, yet, by contrast with mainstream English realism, striking for the boldness and brio of its imaginings. Terry Eagleton"A magnificent collection. From syntactical organization and vocabulary to the span of his intellectual sympathies, his voice is unique. The Guardian"Our language has not enjoyed the work of a poet so religious, without the consolations of convention, since the death of Wallace Stevens. Graham Christian, Harvard Review""Middleton's work is at once rich and sparse, elegantly economic in its subtle shifts from discrete object to discrete object, yet, by contrast with mainstream English realism, striking for the boldness and brio of its imaginings."--Terry Eagleton"A magnificent collection. From syntactical organization and vocabulary to the span of his intellectual sympathies, his voice is unique."--Terry Eagleton "The Guardian""Our language has not enjoyed the work of a poet so religious, without the consolations of convention, since the death of Wallace Stevens."--Graham Christian "Harvard Review" About the Author CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON'S prior works include The Balcony Tree (1992), Intimate Chronicles, and The Word Pavilion: New and Selected Poems published by Sheep Meadow Press. His Collected Poems was published in 2008.
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Elegies and Other Poems
by Lars Gustafsson, Christopher Middleton
A companion volume to Gustfasson's popular collection, The Stillness of the World before Bach (New Directions, 1988). Lars Gustafsson is one of Sweden's leading and most prolific men of letters; a poet, philosopher, and fiction writer with dozens of books to his credit since his literary debut, at the age of twenty, in 1956. Although known in the English-speaking world primarily for his novels, Gustafsson is nevertheless one of the most frequently translated of contemporary Swedish poets. Elegies and Other Poems is a companion volume to The Stillness of the World before Bach (New Directions, 1988). As in that earlier volume, editor Christopher Middleton has made his selection from several of the poet's books and included his own translations as well as those of others, Yvonne Sandstroem, Bill Brookshire, and Philip Martin. Readers of Gustafsson's fiction will recognize in his verse the elegant mix of intellect and sheer play, the ruminations of a mind that apprehends humanity in the riddles of the universe.
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Collected Later Poems
August Kleinzahler says, ‘Christopher Middleton is, and remains, a shocking man. One hardly knows where to begin...’ There are few risks Middleton will not take in his poems. For six decades and more he has uncovered new dimensions in language. The last decade has been one of continuous discovery and extension. His English is an open medium, responding to Arabic, German, Spanish, French and other media. And English is eloquent in its nonsense as much as in its sense. His poems do not linger in the dank alleyways of self: he is always a maker and a shaper, of things that become durable resources for the reader, that refine and extend how we think, see and feel through formed language.
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