Cannonball Read 15

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The Abyss – Marguerite Yourcenar (1966)

The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar

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I am firstly stuck looking at both the English and French titles of this book. In English, The Abyss, and in French L’Oeuvre au Noir, which translates more directly as the “Black Work,” which is a cool title. So maybe it’s the more contemporary use of the concept of the abyss ala Nietzsche that throws me. When you look up the phrase “the black work” in French, you come across articles discussing the steps of alchemy (the steps the soul takes when taking on alchemy) […]

Old before I become a god (a.k.a. Hadrien, no slacker)

Memoirs of Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar

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There were Five Good Emperors, so they say, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, ruling in what is called the golden era of the Roman empire. What is interesting is that they were not related, rather, from Trajan onward they were adopted heirs. Hadrian (Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, originally Publius Aelius Hadrianus) followed Trajan, during whose reign Rome’s empire was maybe at its largest. Where his predecessor was belligerent, Hadrian seeked a more peaceful reign, negotiated truces, and retreated from some strategically unsound […]

They had opposed the marriage to my mother, I understood.

Winter Count by Barry Lopez

Cast a Cold Eye by Mary McCarthy

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen

A Blue Tale and Other Stories by Marguerite Yourcenar

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Winter Count – 4/5 Stars This is a small collection of mostly atmospheric and impressionistic short fiction, more sketches than stories, by the travel and nature writer Barry Lopez. He is most famous for his longer nonfiction like Of Wolves and Men, Arctic Dreams, and you might be hearing his name more prominently in the next few months based on early reviews of his latest book, Horizon. This book is a series of small fictions that mostly deal with little moments, painted scenes, character sketches, […]

One is always punished out of season.

Coup de Grace by Marguerite Yourcenar

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This is another novel by Marguerite Yourcenar and like her book Fires, which I reviewed last week or so it’s from the 1930s. I bring this up for a few reasons. For one, her book after WWII seem of a completely different flavor. The books tend to be longer, slower, and more meditative. This one is quite short — a very light 150 pages, and the narrative is much more quickly paced. The novel about is a rich family in Germany right at the start […]

How dull it would have been to be happy!

Fires by Marguerite Yourcenar

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There are two main narrators for this book by Marguerite Yourcenar. The first is whoever is telling the stories in the vignettes and monologues and minor narratives about the mythic figures. The second is the author herself, experiencing a personal crisis, that seems to result from a disastrous love affair, which has led her to consider suicide. But the idea of the suicide perhaps takes on a kind of Greek/mythopoetic form of dramatic and mythical suicide. The kind of suicide open to heroes, Gods, and […]

My dear Mark

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

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I feel like I have read this novel a few different times. And that’s not exactly the fault of Marguerite Yourcenar, nor is it an indictment of the novel’s quality, but this novel is a lot like the other novels it’s a lot like. So what is this novel? It’s a fictionalized memoir written by the Roman emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius. The format is in the form of a long letter and is broken into large chunks representing different parts of his […]



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