The book opens with Marx. Does this mean this tale will be political and/or philosophical?
Antoine Pallieres, son and heir of old industrial dynasty, is reading Marx. Karl Marx started his career as a philosopher, later becomes a revolutionary communist. The narrator mentions writings by Marx:The German Ideology and The Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach. In The German Ideology, a young Marx begins forming his ideas on the history of materialism. Capitalism creates desires and the fulfillment of desires lead to how these desires can be fulfilled for each individual. The labor needed to fulfill the desires would lead to creating oppression. Yikes I am over my head already! The Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach contains one of Marx's most memorable remarks: “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it” (thesis 11). Why do you think the narrator resents this young man so much?
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The Miracles of Art
We are introduced to the narrator of the first chapter, first sentence, "My name is Renee.I am fifty-four years old..." Hints of the books themes appear immediately. 1. Class status: Renee's status: working woman, widowed, no formal education, short, ulgy, plump with bad breath. 2. Isolation: she and her cat choose not to socialize or connect in an intimate way with outsiders. 3. Stereotypes: she conforms to social prejudices, "concierges are old, ugly and sour,..." 4. Social hierarchy: rich vs. poor, she is a pauper in a "house full of rich people." Renee perpetuates these stereotypes by playing the television all day in the front room. She has created a spy-hole to watch her neighbors comings and goings while watches Death in Venice or listens to Mahler in her "hideaway." The miracles of art chapter title: "I was in the back room, perfectly euphoric, my eyes filling with tears, in the miraculous presence of Art." |
Kathy Corey
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