You know how slight the partitions are between the private rooms of fashionable restaurants in Paris; Very's largest room, for instance, is cut in two by a removable screen. This Scene is not laid at Very's, but in snug quarters, which for reasons of my own I forbear to specify. We were two, so I will say, like Henri Monnier's Prudhomme, "I should not like to compromise her!"

A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.

The first new translation of Balzac’s 1847 novel Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes in half a century, fully annotated and with an extensive introduction In Lost Souls, Honoré de Balzac’s brilliant evocation of nineteenth-century Paris, we enter a world of glittering wealth and grinding poverty, teeming with strivers, poseurs, and pleasure seekers along with those who struggle merely to survive. Between the heights of Parisian society and the criminal world lurking underneath, fate is about to catch up with Lucien de Rubempré, last seen in Lost Illusions, as his literary aspirations, his love for the courtesan Esther van Gobseck, and his scheme to marry the wealthy Clotilde become entangled in the cunning and ultimately disastrous ambitions of the Abbé Herrera, a villain for the ages. An extraordinary volume in Balzac’s vast Human Comedy (in which he endeavored to capture all of society), Lost Souls appears here in its first new English translation in half a century. Keenly attuned to the acerbic charm and subtleties of Balzac’s prose, this edition also includes an introduction presenting thorough biographical, literary, and historical context, as well as extensive notes throughout the text—an invaluable resource for today’s readers as they navigate Balzac’s copious allusions to classical and contemporaneous politics and literature.

Philo Vance, the snobbish art collector who happens to be the longtime friend of District Attorney John Markham, once more finds himself drawn into a criminal investigation. Margaret Odell, the beautiful and talented theatrical singer nicknamed “The Canary,” has been strangled during the night, and from the very beginning there are signs that nothing in the case is quite what it appears to be. Accompanied once more by Sergeant Heath, the unlikely trio struggle to make sense of the evidence. S. S. Van Dine found even more success with this novel, his sophomore outing as a mystery writer. Spending months on the bestseller lists, it was also the first of his books to be made into a movie, with William Powell starring as Philo Vance. At a time when a majority of successful mystery writers were English, Van Dine’s novels evoked an atmosphere that was distinctly American, with Vance’s cultured perspective colliding with Markham’s pragmatic sensibilities and Heath’s no-nonsense street smarts. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011 One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year People speak different languages, and always have. The Ancient Greeks took no notice of anything unless it was said in Greek; the Romans made everyone speak Latin; and in India, people learned their neighbors' languages—as did many ordinary Europeans in times past (Christopher Columbus knew Italian, Portuguese, and Castilian Spanish as well as the classical languages). But today, we all use translation to cope with the diversity of languages. Without translation there would be no world news, not much of a reading list in any subject at college, no repair manuals for cars or planes; we wouldn't even be able to put together flat-pack furniture. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across the whole of human experience, from foreign films to philosophy, to show why translation is at the heart of what we do and who we are. Among many other things, David Bellos asks: What's the difference between translating unprepared natural speech and translating Madame Bovary? How do you translate a joke? What's the difference between a native tongue and a learned one? Can you translate between any pair of languages, or only between some? What really goes on when world leaders speak at the UN? Can machines ever replace human translators, and if not, why? But the biggest question Bellos asks is this: How do we ever really know that we've understood what anybody else says—in our own language or in another? Surprising, witty, and written with great joie de vivre, this book is all about how we comprehend other people and shows us how, ultimately, translation is another name for the human condition.

"Gambara" by Honore de Balzac is a compelling novella that delves into the psyche of the eponymous protagonist, the proficient however tragic Italian composer Paolo Gambara. Set in the vibrant creative and cultural milieu of nineteenth-century Paris, the narrative explores the thin line among genius and insanity. Gambara, once a celebrated composer, is now residing in obscurity and poverty. His existence takes a dramatic turn when he becomes infatuated with a beautiful singer, Marianna, and pours all his innovative power into composing an opera in her honor. However, Gambara's grand creative aims are marred with the aid of his deteriorating mental kingdom. As the novella unfolds, Balzac skillfully weaves a narrative that intertwines the nation-states of song, love, and insanity. The character of Gambara will become a symbol of the tortured artist, grappling with the complexities of notion and the harsh realities of existence. The tale is a poignant exploration of the adverse electricity of unrequited love and the exceptional line among innovative brilliance and the descent into madness. "Gambara" stands as a testament to Balzac's capability to dissect the human situation and the tumultuous intersection of artistic passion and personal tragedy.

The legacy of Bertolt Brecht is much contested, whether by those who wish to forget or to vilify his politics, but his stature as the outstanding political playwright and poet of the twentieth century is unforgettably established in this major critical work. Fredric Jameson elegantly dissects the intricate connections between Brecht’s drama and politics, demonstrating the way these combined to shape a unique and powerful influence on a profoundly troubled epoch. Jameson sees Brecht’s method as a multi-layered process of reflection and self-reflection, reference and self-reference, which tears open a gap for individuals to situate themselves historically, to think about themselves in the third person, and to use that self-projection in history as a basis for judgment. Emphasizing the themes of separation, distance, multiplicity, choice and contradiction in Brecht’s entire corpus, Jameson’s study engages in a dialogue with a cryptic work, unpublished in Brecht’s lifetime, entitled Me-ti; Book of Twists and Turns. Jameson sees this text as key to understanding Brecht’s critical reflections on dialectics and his orientally informed fascination with flow and flux, change and the non-eternal. For Jameson, Brecht is not prescriptive but performative. His plays do not provide answers but attempt to show people how to perform the act of thinking, how to begin to search for answers themselves. Brecht represents the ceaselessness of transformation while at the same time alienating it, interrupting it, making it comprehensible by making it strange. And thereby, in breaking it up by analysis, the possibility emerges of its reconstitution under a new law.