Ryder (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))

by Djuna Barnes

Book Overview

From the author of Nightwood, Djuna Barnes has written a book that is all that she was, and must still be vulgar, beautiful, defiant, witty, poetic, and a little mad.Told as through a kaleidoscope,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0916583554
• Release Date: May 1990
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

an astonishing writer

It wasn't only T.S. Eliot who described Djuna Barnes's style as Elizabethan. (Though the poet Marie Ponsot has described her as Jacobean.) What period could encompass this twentieth century writer's talent for casting spells both psychological and atmospheric? I've never read anyone quite like her. If only James Joyce had been a little more talented, he might have been Barnesian--but few of us know this; join us!

A Great Achievement

This is an amazing work. A mostly autobiographical parody, Barnes uses Ryder as sort of a twisted extended metaphor for the rest of the world. The beautiful and inventive prose, though often obscure, illustrates the life of the Ryder family poignantly and indignantly. Written in various styles, the book is bound to touch each and every reader.