The Abyss [Paperback]

Marguerite Yourcenar (Author), Grace Frick (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1981

Marguerite Yourcenar instantly assumes command of our imagination in her novel The Abyss. Almost before we know it the author establishes a scene and time, and engages us in the fate of two cousins.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Marguerite Yourcenar instantly assumes command of our imagination in her novel The Abyss. Almost before we know it, the author establishes a scene (a road in northern France) and time (the second quarter of the sixteenth century), and engages us in the fate of two cousins. The younger, sixteen-year-old Henry Maximilian, has set out to become a soldier and poet; the elder, twenty-two-year-old Zeno, has left a seminary to make himself an alchemist-philosopher. The book reads as if an old map--decorated with walled cities, boats on rivers, castles, people, and animals--had come alive . . . As rich as a tapestry."--Naomi Bliven, The New Yorker

"A brilliant tapestry of Western Europe in the Middle Ages, as sharply detailed as a Brueghel."--Michael Kernan, The Washington Post

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 374 pages
• Publisher: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (August 1, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374516669
• ISBN-13: 978-0374516666
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Monument in Literature, November 29, 2002

By 

"xaaav" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Abyss (Hardcover)

The Abyss is one of the two books that haunted Marguerite Yourcenar during her whole life, the other one being the famous "Memoirs of Hadrian".
Zenon, the Hero of the Abyss, is much closer to the author as he shares with her the passion for the unknown countries of the soul and the spirit. Like always, Marguerite Youcenar delivers an analytical vision of the universality of human condition without turning her book into a boring dogma. She has the unique talent and intelligence to be habited by her characters and delivers here a chef d'oeuvre in many regards. The accuracy of the description of the torments of Zenon emphasized by the precise knowledge of major events of this part of this history transforms almost this book into a mystical experience. The chapter named "The abyss" is a piece of literature that can be read many times while still discovering a teaching or a new element of poetry.
It would be VERY unfair not to mention here, Grace Frick, Marguerite's life companion, who was maybe the best French translator of her generation and delivers here a maginificient English text.
Du grand art!

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars caught in the religious wars, June 26, 2001

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Abyss (Paperback)

After reading her Memoires of Hadrian, I was delighted to find that Yourcenar had written another historical novel. This book is so dense with detail and emotion that I was astounded and fascinated on almost every page. It is simply brilliant, successfully bringing to life a dark and alien period of history.

WHile this book, at least in French, is touted as being about a man "between the Medieval Ages and Renaissance," it is best at chronicling the personal consequences of the religious wars on everyday lives. Zenon is an alchemist, but above all a tolerant and humanistic physician in an age of religious intolerance. His caring and vision, after a neglected childhood in a merchants' household, are indeed deeply moving.

Zenon is a great original in historical fiction, an intellectual rather than a king or empire builder. You follow him as he wanders about Europe, learning, teaching, healing, and occasionally loving. The tenderness and empathy that he feels for those around him reveal the tenor of the times in exacting detail.

Warmly recommended.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great study of a complex psyche, June 13, 2003

By 

Philippe Vandenbroeck (HEVERLEE, BELGIUM) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Abyss: A Novel (Hardcover)

Reading a book by M. Yourcenar, a prose writer of great skill, is invariably a delight. The scope of her novels is epic, the composition is as intricate and carefully crafted as a Beethoven symphony. Here in The Abyss, the main theme of the book - the clash between the impetus of momentous historical forces and the destiny of a single human being - is introduced in the very first sentence of the book. It accompanies the reader throughout the book as an insistent motto theme. Yourcenar's prose is carefully polished and aristocratic and reflects her admirable erudition. It is a language with the colour, texture and depth of a precious fabric or an excellent wine. The pace of the book is naturally rather slow, particularly in its second part where the alchemist and doctor Zenon has settled down again in Bruges and is given to long bouts of introspection. But the noble pacing is fully in accord with the gravity of the subject matter and the stakes involved. I think the book has lost nothing of its relevance today, a time in which civil rights are being widely curtailed in the name of abstract principles. As such it warrants closer study by those wanting to resist these pressures and to stick to honest and authentic choices.