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- General fiction - |
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Into the Looking-glass Wood |
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I nto the Looking-glass Wood byAlberto Manguel Bloomsbury 288 pages, 2000 ISBN 0747543429 Reviewed by Faith Leslie - South Africa Alberto Manguel is a writer, translator and editor of international reputation. He is the author of many books and short story anthologies. Born in Buenos Aires, he is now a Canadian citizen but in addition, a citizen of the world. In Into the Looking-glass Wood he has set his writings, talks and articles into a frame, using the 'Alice' theme, dividing them into various compartments. He takes us through the significance of words to the fact that a reader makes the words real, each in his own way, then to the realisation that what a writer writes is not necessarily what he is or believes. In the Memoranda section, Borges in Love deals with Luis Borges in this way: "He was to be only Borges, a fumbling dream-lover, still unable... to conjure up the one fulfilling and almost perfect woman of his waking dreams." The author goes on to The Gates of Paradise where reading is erotic, on to Browsing in the Rag-and-Bone Shop, the darker side of reading to a frame, and Wordplay where he discusses the meanings and contradictions of words and writing. In the frame of Crime and Punishment, his disillusionment created by the actions of past friends comes to the forefront, while in Certain Books he writes of Chesterton, Cynthia Ozick and Richard Outram. Lastly, Remembering the Future sheds some interesting light on reading before the ninth century, when silent reading was rare, lamenting the fact that computers are changing the way we read now and the way we will read in the future. Not an easy read yet most rewarding and stimulating for any discriminating reader. |
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