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4 books match the query 'Two Worlds'

cover of A Tale of Two Worlds

A Tale of Two Worlds

Vjenceslav Novak

Central European University Press, 2014

In this novel, written by the esteemed novelist in 1901, a provincial composer and organist from Croatia struggles to find his way along the perilous frontier between the worlds of artistic vocation and humdrum family life. The local kapellmeister—-a Czech, in good Habsburg tradition, and a confidant of Gaj and Palacky, influential politicians of the time—-recognizes young Amadej Zlatanic as a prodigy and persuades the stingy mayor and stubborn parish priest to pack the teenager off to the conservatory in Prague. After several years of sordid student purgatory, Amadej returns to Croatia—-ready for love and ready to make great art.The world of Central Europe in the 1860s flows past, and Amadej tries to keep abreast of political change. At the same time he ducks and dodges predatory relatives and townspeople in his native district, to which he has returned for the sake of employment. Despite his marriage to the impressionable and vulnerable local beauty, Adelka, and his devotion to their daughter Veruska, Amadej is sorely troubled by the political corruption and isolation of Croatia. His wife takes ill and his family is poor. Yet ultimately it is the vulgar, populist notion of Croatian "identity"—-symbolized by the worship of the tamburica, a local musical instrument—-that crushes Amadej's career. As it does so, he contemplates the two worlds of national greatness, amidst the Croatian national awakening, and international fame. Finally, frustrated beyond relief by unsuccessful affairs both amorous and professional, and tortured by the philistinism surrounding him, Amadej leaves the world of sanity for a mind-blowing descent into the maniacal and inescapable world of hallucination, paganism, and paranoia.
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cover of Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700

Saints and Society

The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000-1700

Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell

University of Chicago Press, 1986

In Saints and Society, Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell examine the lives of 864 saints who lived between 1000 and 1700 and the perceptions of sanctity prevalent in late medieval and early modern Europe. They also provide a substantial body of information on the people among whom the saints lived and by whom they came to be venerated. In the first part, the authors give close consideration to what the saints' lives reveal about childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; the impact of religious inspiration upon family bonds; and family influences upon religious behavior. The second part provides a composite picture of piety and its changing configuration in Latin Christendom. With the assistance of statistical analysis, the authors answer questions involving the popular perception of holiness, social class, and gender.
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cover of Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices

Surviving in Two Worlds

Contemporary Native American Voices

By Lois Crozier-Hogle and Darryl Babe Wilson

University of Texas Press, 1997

Surviving in Two Worlds brings together the voices of twenty-six Native American leaders. The interviewees come from a variety of tribal backgrounds and include such national figures as Oren Lyons, Arvol Looking Horse, John Echohawk, William Demmert, Clifford Trafzer, Greg Sarris, and Roxanne Swentzell.

Their interviews are divided into five sections, grouped around the themes of tradition, history and politics, healing, education, and culture. They take readers into their lives, their dreams and fears, their philosophies and experiences, and show what they are doing to assure the survival of their peoples and cultures, as well as the earth as a whole. Their analyses of the past and present, and especially their counsels for the future, are timely and urgent.

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cover of The Two Worlds of William March

The Two Worlds of William March

Roy S. Simmonds

University of Alabama Press, 1984

In the work of literary resurrection there is always a small act of defiance. The Two Worlds of William March by Roy S. Simmonds restores to view one of the most remarkable and least celebrated American writers of the twentieth century. With intelligence, restraint, and a keen eye for contradiction, Simmonds traces March’s path from Alabama beginnings through war, business success, and literary achievement. The result is more than a biography. It is an inquiry into the making of a writer whose novels continue to unsettle, disturb, and illuminate long after the fashions of his age have passed. 

What lingers is the paradox of William March himself. He was a man of outward accomplishment who remained drawn to the hidden regions of experience. He wrote memorably of war without glamorizing it, and of evil without simplifying it. Unlike so many public literary figures, he seemed to cultivate disappearance rather than celebrity. The silence around him became part of the story. Simmonds treats that silence not as a void but as evidence, revealing a complex and deeply observant mind at work beneath an unusually quiet life. 

The questions that occupied March remain with us. How well do we know ourselves? What lies beneath ordinary behavior? How does experience become art? For readers of Southern literature, literary biography, American history, war literature, psychology, Alabama culture, and twentieth-century fiction, this book offers both discovery and reconsideration. It will especially appeal to those who suspect that the most revealing stories are often hidden in plain sight.

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