Customer Reviews

That Mighty Sculptor, Time

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

She writes so well. Fascinating. It gave me wings to fly freely to see things down below. Michelangelo was great before she found him in his creation of beautiful male nudes. But even unknown sculptors come alive as great chiseled by aging. I agree with her that the beauty of the aging of stones defeating the aging of the flesh.
In her poetic enthusiasm, she mixed up the age of Gherald Perini the model whose abrupt disappearance made the artist heart-broken so badly. According to her, Gherald had been immortalized as he had been painted on the vault of the Sistine Chapel as a shining young man. The fact is that when the ceiling was done by his brush-works, Perini had been barely born. He could not possibly have modeled for Michelangelo when was doing the master work.

This book contains a grand variety of themes: the meaning of Eastern and Christmas, Andalusia and its culture, the Gita-Govinda, the tombs of Jeanne de Vietinghoff, Jacques Masui and Jean Schlumberger, environmental problems and the fate of animals (fur providers or guinea pigs in research).
The essays express the profound pessimism of the author as well as her ferocious attack on the fundamental inhumanity of the masters of the world.

Declaration of Human Rights, Declaration of Animal Rights
It is now nearly two hundred years since the Declaration of Human Rights has been proclaimed. But, what is the result? Since then there has been more and more concentration camps, more massive destruction of human lives and more degradation of the concept of humanity. So, why a Declaration of Animal Rights?

Sexuality
... these eternal oppressing powers of sensuality, the jealousy or greed of the masters and the fathers, who consider their herd of females as a well guarded flock, their aim to reduce the sensual luxury to a pure genital act, and the curious instinct of man to complicate or simplify what is natural.

The nobility of failure
The terrible oppression of the peasants (the Mino dance) by an oligarchy of nobles in Japan during the Genji period (I. Morris - The World of the Shining Prince) stands in sharp contrast with her vision how the nobility, her class, should exercise responsibly their political and social power (`Memoirs of Hadrian').

Highly recommended to all lovers of world literature and to all fans of Marguerite Yourcenar.