TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| The Lies They Told Reconstructing officials’ false and ineffectual responses to 9/11. feeds.nytimes.com |
French university brings manuscripts of Stendhal into the 21st century Website uses cutting-edge technology to place author's barely legible manuscripts next to scrupulous modern-day transcriptsHe was born before the French revolution, lived through the Napoleonic wars and died having spent his life documenting the anxieties and aspirations of a peculiarly tumultuous era.But now Marie-Henri Beyle, or Stendhal as he came to be known, has become the latest of France's literary giants to be dragged into the 21st century courtesy of painstaking research and cutting-edge digital technology.A new website launched by the Stendhal University of Grenoble and the city's public library aims to give the novelist a new lease of life by putting his often barely legible manuscripts online next to scrupulous new transcripts and annotations by literary scholars.So far around 500 pages of Stendhal's lesser-known works are available for viewing at manuscrits-de-stendhal.org, with extracts from the author's reflections on travel, literature and philosophy as well as his personal correspondence forming the basis of the fledgling database.If the site manages to work its way through the Grenoble library's huge collection of Stendhal originals, users will eventually be able to leaf through the yellow-spotted sheets of works such as Lucien Leuwen and The Life of Henry Brulard as well as reading explanatory, modern-day transcripts.Those looking to discover the original pages of two of his most famous novels – The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma – will, however, be disappointed: the site warns that the initial drafts of these classics "no longer exist, as it was customary in the 19th century to destroy a work's manuscripts after its publication".Nonetheless, Cécile Meynard, a Stendhal specialist and co-director of the site, believes that the venture could prove invaluable for enthusiasts of all kinds, potentially making the Grenoble-born literary realist more accessible to the general public."Specialists will definitely find information there but the amateur enthusiast can also access the site and find interesting information," she told a French radio station. Begun three years ago, the painstaking research on Stendhal echoes a similar website launched earlier this year based on the writings of another 19th-century colossus, Gustave Flaubert.In April, 4,500 pages of his 1857 masterpiece Madame Bovary were put online after volunteers across the world retranscribed the entire work. Initially envisaged as a research resource, the finished site, www.bovary.fr, brought a new dimension to the enduring classic.FranceFictionHistoryInternetLizzy Daviesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Alice in Wonderland: now with dragons A new trailer has been released for Tim Burton's non-canonical take on the Lewis Carroll classic. All looks promising. But what's that sitting on a castle?When it comes to classic English literature, the number of dragons can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. There's The Hobbit, of course and Beowulf, but not, up until now at least, Alice in Wonderland.Nobody seems to have told Tim Burton, however, for keep an eagle eye on the new trailer for the US film-maker's 3D adventure and you'll be able to spot a giant wyrm sitting atop a ruined castle in the final frames. Brad Brevet of the Rope of Silicon blog has kindly captured it as a still, here.It's already been established that Burton is playing fast and loose with Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel, of course. It features events and characters from both Alice in Wonderland and sequel Through the Looking Glass, and centres on a 17-year-old Alice's return to the world of the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat after many years away.The new trailer gives us our first glimpse of the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), the Jabberwock (Christopher Lee), Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas) and the cat (Stephen Fry) in action, and also features an extended helping of Johnny Depp as the Hatter. Is it me or is he doing one of his overly-studied, spurious "English" accents again? Never mind "a place like no place on Earth", where on the planet do people speak like that? It's not long now until Alice in Wonderland arrives - March 5 to be precise. Are you looking forward to it? And does it bother you that Burton seems to be way out on the leftfield with this one?Tim BurtonJohnny DeppLewis CarrollBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Books of The Times: A Pillow-Talk Portrait of a Hollywood Survivor This exhaustingly detailed biography of Warren Beatty portrays him as a master manipulator with shrewd survival instincts. feeds.nytimes.com |
The Year That Was Why the revolutions of 1989 turned out the way they did. feeds.nytimes.com |