In Isak Dinesen's universe, the magical enchantment of the fairy tale and the moral resonance of myth coexist with an unflinching grasp of the most obscure human strengths and weaknesses. A despairing author abandons his wife, but in the course of a long night's wandering, he learns love's true value and returns to her, only to find her a different woman than the one he left. A landowner, seeking to prove a principle, inadvertently exposes the ferocity of mother love. A wealthy young traveler melts the hauteur of a lovely woman by masquerading as her aged and loyal servant. Shimmering and haunting, Dinesen's Winter's Tales transport us, through their author's deft guidance of our desire to imagine, to the mysterious place where all stories are born.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Pure storytelling.:
These tales don't start with "once upon a time," but they ought to. These beautiful stories-within-stories are dazzling at times, disorienting at others--how deeply in can we go before the enframing story is lost? But the plots are intricately interwoven, the threads all tie into one another, and all makes sense as we move in and out of these complicated tapestry tales. And thanks to the previous reviewers who are providing overviews of her other fiction; I appreciate it.
One of her very best books:
This is a terrifc book by a unique writer. That's no surprise, because Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) wrote a number of fine books. Her ledger contains a couple of volumes of reminiscence about her life in Africa, a pseudonymous novel of adventure (_The Angelic Avengers_), and posthumously published books of stories (_Carnival_) and essays (_Daguerrotypes_). Despite the interest and occasional excellence of these books -- especially in the case of _Out of Africa_ -- it's as a writer of long stories that... more info
Winter's Tales is refined prose and wisdom of a lost age.:
Isak Diensen's book of ornate, Baroque prose is on an unreachable echelon separate from any writer writing literature today or even from her era. Her stories transport readers to a period where thinking and intelligence were elegant and refined, smooth and intermixed with tints of religiosity. Stories such as "The Invincible Slave-Owner" and "The Sailor-Boy's Tale" show Diensen's strong knowledge of Danish folklore and Baroque description. Mind you, this is not easy reading! The messages are simple, but yet... more info
Her "other" great book of short stories:
Karen Blixen wrote a number of fine books, but only 4 could be called short story collections. Her first book, _Seven Gothic Tales_ is usually the book of stories that people remember first-- deservedly, because any book that contains "The Deluge at Norderney," "The Monkey," and "The Poet" gets high marks. The other stories in the book aren't exactly chopped liver, either.
However, I will submit that _Winter's Tales_ deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as _Seven Gothic Tales_. Indeed, in some... more info
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