Word: minotaure
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cockeyne. Annette, a "cosmopolitan ragamuffin," according to her diplomat father, begins the novel by leaving finishing school because teacher, who was reading Dante, said the poor Minotaur was suffering in hell. Since Annette feels that the classical monster* can't help being a monster, she leaves, not neglecting to swing on a chandelier on the way, and goes out to live the exciting life of a junior myth...
Rolling Oddballs. Annette rolls through the story with a large collection of fellow oddballs, and all are kept in motion by the mysterious Mischa Fox, the enchanter of the book's title. A fabulously rich publisher who lives, like the Minotaur, in a mazelike palace, Mischa is, in terms of realism, the weakest thing in the novel. But he serves to underline Author Murdoch's philosophic point: those unsure of their own identity are at the mercy of anyone's will...
...Modern Minotaur. In Monsieur Folantin, Huysmans does much the same kind of thing for a cantankerous old bachelor with stomach trouble whose only quest in life is a good place to eat. Huysmans adds the pepper of cosmic malice and by the time he finishes tightening the belt of loneliness and despair around M. Folantin's spiritual midriff, ashes seem the principal diet of mankind...
...contrast, the sunniest tale in the book is by that late great skeptic, André Gide, who tells his version of how Theseus bested the Minotaur. The thesis of Gide's Theseus is that the cave of the Minotaur is seductive as well as labyrinthine, a lotus land of indolence and confusion which exists in every man's mind more surely than it ever did in ancient Crete, and that each man must sally forth from it after slaying his personal monsters of fear and convention. In his serene, neoclassic way. Gide puts a French accent...
...pictures on view ranged from gloomy and disturbing scenes of death to bright and happy still-lifes. Cannabin, done in thickly applied tropical reds and blue-greens, showed flies feeding on the carcass of a dog. Minotaur set such modern forms as radar equipment and airplane parts in a desolate, post-Armageddon landscape. On the other hand, Still-Life with Pear was as cheerful and peaceful as a morning in spring, and Made in U.S.A. expressed the hustling vitality of a city waterfront...