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Marguerite Yourcenar
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That Mighty Sculptor, Time Hardcover – May 1, 1992
by Marguerite Yourcenar (Author), Walter Kaiser (Translator)
5.0 out of 5 stars 6 ratings
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Working with Kaiser, who co-translated her novels ? Alexis and Two Lives and a Dream , Yourcenar (1903-1987) has rendered the nuances of her original French to subtle and profound effect in a work that is poetic and provocative. The title essay takes its name from a poem by Victor Hugo and echoes the theme that unifies all 24 essays included here: the ravages of time are inescapable, and we must make peace with them or perish in anguish. With characteristic breadth of vision, the author views creation and decay as inextricably linked. She writes, "On the day when a statue is finished, its life, in a certain sense, begins"51 and, as this life unfolds and is publicly received, the statue will "bit by bit return . . . to the state of unformed mineral mass out of which its sculptor had taken it."51 In see fix above meditations on art, history and memory, Yourcenar addresses an impressive variety of subjects, from the nature of conversation in the historical novel to the celebration of the Days of the Dead . The book proves to be a beautiful and appropriate memento mori--one that salutes life while it commemorates death, claiming that though lives pass, life does not.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Yourcenar's contributions to the world of letters--as poet, playwright, essayist, translator, novelist, and writer of short stories--have won her France's most prestigious recognition of a writer: election to the Academie Francaise in 1980. Born in Brussels in 1903, Marguerite de Crayencour (her real name) traveled with her father in Europe, then the United States, where she settled (in Maine, on Mount Desert Island) until her death in 1987, having become an American citizen in 1947. Her travels and immense erudition have turned her works into a mix of historical facts, philosophical musings, and well-orchestrated fiction. Indeed, this translation, which brings together essays published in literary journals, constitutes only a sampling of Yourcenar's wide-ranging interests in art, literature, esthetics, and religion. This volume is not a scholarly edition: it has neither an informative introduction, notes, nor a selective bibliography of critical works to help the reader. Rather, it sheds a partial light on a very eclectic and rich corpus--enough to entice the reader to look for more.
- Danielle Mihram, Univ. of Southern California Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A posthumous collection of essays that, as in Dear Departed (1991), again reveal the late French Academy member's exceptionally wide range of interests: forceful opinions on everything from the books of Carlos Castaneda to the wearing of fur coats fill this slender, often arcane, but occasionally illuminating volume. Translated and occasionally reworked in collaboration with Walter Kaiser near the end of Yourcenar's life (1903-87), many of the best pieces here confront the issues of time's passage and the nature of life and death. In ``On Some Lines from the Venerable Bede,'' Yourcenar, discussing the introduction of Christianity to the British people, becomes captivated by a description of life as ``the flight of a sparrow'' through a great fire-lit hall while storms rage outside, and suggests that this image also evokes the human mind. In the title essay, she meditates on the transformative effects of time, nature, and the quirks of human judgment on the fates of ancient Greek statues as they return, over eons, to their primal mineral state. In ``The Nobility of Failure,'' Yourcenar departs from relating instances of ritual suicide in Japan to explore the heroic potential of death and defeat. Profound meditations from a woman near her own death--nearly buried beneath a number of less worthy topics and treatments, certainly, but worth unearthing nevertheless. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: FrenchSee less
-------------------------
Product details
Hardcover: 229 pages
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux; 1st edition (May 1, 1992)
Language: English
Working with Kaiser, who co-translated her novels ? Alexis and Two Lives and a Dream , Yourcenar (1903-1987) has rendered the nuances of her original French to subtle and profound effect in a work that is poetic and provocative. The title essay takes its name from a poem by Victor Hugo and echoes the theme that unifies all 24 essays included here: the ravages of time are inescapable, and we must make peace with them or perish in anguish. With characteristic breadth of vision, the author views creation and decay as inextricably linked. She writes, "On the day when a statue is finished, its life, in a certain sense, begins"51 and, as this life unfolds and is publicly received, the statue will "bit by bit return . . . to the state of unformed mineral mass out of which its sculptor had taken it."51 In see fix above meditations on art, history and memory, Yourcenar addresses an impressive variety of subjects, from the nature of conversation in the historical novel to the celebration of the Days of the Dead . The book proves to be a beautiful and appropriate memento mori--one that salutes life while it commemorates death, claiming that though lives pass, life does not.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Yourcenar's contributions to the world of letters--as poet, playwright, essayist, translator, novelist, and writer of short stories--have won her France's most prestigious recognition of a writer: election to the Academie Francaise in 1980. Born in Brussels in 1903, Marguerite de Crayencour (her real name) traveled with her father in Europe, then the United States, where she settled (in Maine, on Mount Desert Island) until her death in 1987, having become an American citizen in 1947. Her travels and immense erudition have turned her works into a mix of historical facts, philosophical musings, and well-orchestrated fiction. Indeed, this translation, which brings together essays published in literary journals, constitutes only a sampling of Yourcenar's wide-ranging interests in art, literature, esthetics, and religion. This volume is not a scholarly edition: it has neither an informative introduction, notes, nor a selective bibliography of critical works to help the reader. Rather, it sheds a partial light on a very eclectic and rich corpus--enough to entice the reader to look for more.
- Danielle Mihram, Univ. of Southern California Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A posthumous collection of essays that, as in Dear Departed (1991), again reveal the late French Academy member's exceptionally wide range of interests: forceful opinions on everything from the books of Carlos Castaneda to the wearing of fur coats fill this slender, often arcane, but occasionally illuminating volume. Translated and occasionally reworked in collaboration with Walter Kaiser near the end of Yourcenar's life (1903-87), many of the best pieces here confront the issues of time's passage and the nature of life and death. In ``On Some Lines from the Venerable Bede,'' Yourcenar, discussing the introduction of Christianity to the British people, becomes captivated by a description of life as ``the flight of a sparrow'' through a great fire-lit hall while storms rage outside, and suggests that this image also evokes the human mind. In the title essay, she meditates on the transformative effects of time, nature, and the quirks of human judgment on the fates of ancient Greek statues as they return, over eons, to their primal mineral state. In ``The Nobility of Failure,'' Yourcenar departs from relating instances of ritual suicide in Japan to explore the heroic potential of death and defeat. Profound meditations from a woman near her own death--nearly buried beneath a number of less worthy topics and treatments, certainly, but worth unearthing nevertheless. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French
See less
Product details
Hardcover: 229 pages
Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux; 1st edition (May 1, 1992)
Language: English
5.0 out of 5 stars
5 out of 5
Top Reviews
kimitada miwa
5.0 out of 5 stars What a mighty woman the author is!
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2011
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
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.
5 people found this helpful
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R. M. PetersonTop Contributor: Poetry Books
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some of the most learned, and readable, essays I have encountered
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Marguerite Yourcenar is a treasure. In writing that sentence, I use the present tense -- even though she died in 1987 -- because more so than most writers she seems to transcend time. Perhaps that is because many of the subjects she writes about cover great expanses of time, or, seem to be imbued with timelessness.
One example is the essay whose title is also the book's title. It is about the evanescence (in the grand scheme of things) of statues -- say, a Kouros of the sixth century: it first was a block of stone, from which the sculptor fashioned a human shape, which then over the course of centuries will "bit by bit return to the state of unformed mineral mass out of which its sculptor had taken it."
Or, consider the first essay in the book, about a passage from the Venerable Bede about the coming of Christianity to the British Isles. According to Bede, when a Christian missionary sought the permission of Edwin, King of Northumberland, to evangelize in his lands, Edwin turned to his council for their advice. One thane explained why he saw no reason to object to the introduction of a god named Jesus into Northumberland: "The life of man on earth, My Lord, in comparison with the vast stretches of time about which we know nothing, seems to me to resemble the flight of a sparrow, who enters through a window in the great hall warmed by a blazing fire laid in the center of it where you feast with your councilors and liege men, while outside the tempests and snows of winter rage. And the bird swiftly sweeps through the great hall and flies out the other side, and after this brief respite, having come out of the winter, he goes back into it and is lost to your eyes. Such is the brief life of man, of which we know neither what goes before nor what comes after . . . "
Yourcenar was born in 1903 in Brussels. Her father was French, her mother Belgian. In 1980 she was the first woman elected to the Académie française (the labels on the bathrooms were changed to read "Messieurs" and "Marguerite Yourcenar").
Accordingly, it should be no surprise that the eighteen essays in THAT MIGHTY SCULPTOR, TIME reflect prodigious erudition. They also display considerable range: from the Venerable Bede to Albrecht Dürer to the Heian period of Japanese history to Tantric Yoga to the history of Andalusia. One of my favorite essays concerns a book that Yourcenar conceived and worked on but eventually abandoned; it was to be about three Elizabeths -- Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and Elizabeth Báthory (b. 1560, d. 1614), a countess and a serial killer, responsible for the torture and death of perhaps hundreds of young women.
Yourcenar also is opinionated (in several of the essays she espouses the cause of animal rights) and, icing on the cake, she is a marvelous writer. To illustrate, I will close with a paragraph from a piece she wrote for a book of essays by women that, in the event, was not published: "I've been asked to collaborate on a collection entitled 'Angry Women'. I dislike that title: I approve of indignation, which in our day finds only too many occasions for exercising itself, but I can't say that I approve of anger, that tiny individual irruption which disqualifies, blinds, and leaves one short of breath. Nor do I like the fact that this collection is exclusively limited to women writers. Let's not build again compartments for women only."
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Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Marguerite Yourcenar is a treasure. In writing that sentence, I use the present tense -- even though she died in 1987 -- because more so than most writers she seems to transcend time. Perhaps that is because many of the subjects she writes about cover great expanses of time, or, seem to be imbued with timelessness.
One example is the essay whose title is also the book's title. It is about the evanescence (in the grand scheme of things) of statues -- say, a Kouros of the sixth century: it first was a block of stone, from which the sculptor fashioned a human shape, which then over the course of centuries will "bit by bit return to the state of unformed mineral mass out of which its sculptor had taken it."
Or, consider the first essay in the book, about a passage from the Venerable Bede about the coming of Christianity to the British Isles. According to Bede, when a Christian missionary sought the permission of Edwin, King of Northumberland, to evangelize in his lands, Edwin turned to his council for their advice. One thane explained why he saw no reason to object to the introduction of a god named Jesus into Northumberland: "The life of man on earth, My Lord, in comparison with the vast stretches of time about which we know nothing, seems to me to resemble the flight of a sparrow, who enters through a window in the great hall warmed by a blazing fire laid in the center of it where you feast with your councilors and liege men, while outside the tempests and snows of winter rage. And the bird swiftly sweeps through the great hall and flies out the other side, and after this brief respite, having come out of the winter, he goes back into it and is lost to your eyes. Such is the brief life of man, of which we know neither what goes before nor what comes after . . . "
Yourcenar was born in 1903 in Brussels. Her father was French, her mother Belgian. In 1980 she was the first woman elected to the Académie française (the labels on the bathrooms were changed to read "Messieurs" and "Marguerite Yourcenar").
Accordingly, it should be no surprise that the eighteen essays in THAT MIGHTY SCULPTOR, TIME reflect prodigious erudition. They also display considerable range: from the Venerable Bede to Albrecht Dürer to the Heian period of Japanese history to Tantric Yoga to the history of Andalusia. One of my favorite essays concerns a book that Yourcenar conceived and worked on but eventually abandoned; it was to be about three Elizabeths -- Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and Elizabeth Báthory (b. 1560, d. 1614), a countess and a serial killer, responsible for the torture and death of perhaps hundreds of young women.
Yourcenar also is opinionated (in several of the essays she espouses the cause of animal rights) and, icing on the cake, she is a marvelous writer. To illustrate, I will close with a paragraph from a piece she wrote for a book of essays by women that, in the event, was not published: "I've been asked to collaborate on a collection entitled 'Angry Women'. I dislike that title: I approve of indignation, which in our day finds only too many occasions for exercising itself, but I can't say that I approve of anger, that tiny individual irruption which disqualifies, blinds, and leaves one short of breath. Nor do I like the fact that this collection is exclusively limited to women writers. Let's not build again compartments for women only."
---
Luc REYNAERT
5.0 out of 5 stars All individual lives are accepted defeats
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2010
Format: Paperback
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.
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tomomori
5.0 out of 5 stars 「Life, for evey man, is an accepted defeat.」
Reviewed in Japan on January 25, 2012
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
マルグリット・ユルスナールはサラ・ローレンス大学で教職に就いた経歴がある。その時のことを尋ねられ、「時間の無駄でした」とあっさりと即答していた。私は彼女が先生業に向かなかったということだと解釈した。哲人タイプがおしなべて教師に不向きという訳ではない。生存中の生身の人間にはあまり興味がなかったのではないか。本書はユルスナールのエッセイ集というか雑文集なのだが、中に「Fur-bearing animals」というごく数ページの不思議な雑文がある。フェミニズム系の短編集への執筆を求められて彼女は拒むのである。直接の理由は明言されず、こんな趣旨の文章が続く。女たちは自分の立場をあれやこれやと抗議する。そしてそんな女たちは毛皮が大好きだ。動物たちはそれに抗議出来ない。そして狩りをするのは男たちである。つまりこうか。男も女も人間はろくでもない。私はどちらに肩入れする気もない。あるいはこうか。我らの声を聞けと迫る者たちには興味がない。私は沈黙の中の声を聞きたいのだ。どちらにしろ、感情を出さないユルスナールが珍しく一片の感情を見せている。
という訳で、インドや日本に絡むエッセイが数編入っている他はテーマ的には一見統一感がないエッセイ集なのだが、ユルスナールが書く以上、テーマはあるのだ。人間の営みのパノラマを解剖学者のように眺め、超然と高雅な文章で深く思索したベルギー貴族の末裔。近代の姿に眉をひそめ、しかしそれを声高には語らなかった女性。言外に迷路がある。三島由起夫論とイヴァン・モリスの『高貴なる敗北』のレビューも掲載されているが、個人的にはあまり面白くなかった。わずか三ページの毛皮論（？）の方にユルスナールの深淵があるように感じられた。
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