Perfect Tense - Couverture souple

Bracewell, Michael

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0099440652 ISBN 13 : 9780099440659

Editeur : Vintage, 2002

Synopsis

The narrator of this novel is a man broken on the beige wheel of office life, the grinding routine and endless buff envelopes. One particular day he scrutinizes the arcana of his environment like an urban anthropologist, looking for spiritual purpose, and finding only yuccas and polystyrene cups.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The anonymous, middle-aged narrator of Perfect Tense is a man broken on the wheel of office life - the great beige wheel of grinding routine, the uniform grey carpets, the endless buff envelopes. Driven by the entropy of the office, out of step with the zeitgeist, he has begun to question his whole generation, and his own empty, under-achieved life in particular. Recounting his day at the office - one particular day, which seems to mimic the coffee-mug slogan, 'Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life' - the narrator scrutinises the arcana of his environment like an urban anthropologist, looking for aesthetic or spiritual purpose and finding only print-outs and suspension files, spider plants and yuccas and polystyrene cups.In this short, brilliant novel, we are taken on a terrifyingly familiar tour of office life which is at once hilarious and profound - the comedy of recognition matched by deepening urban anxiety, as if T.S. Eliot had been blessed with Groucho Marx's comic timing. One man's unravelling philosophical crisis amid the leaving parties and sandwiches becomes, in the hands of Michael Bracewell, a metaphysical search for order and purpose deep in the back of a desk drawer.

Biographie de l'auteur

Michael Bracewell was born in London in 1958. Educated at the University of Nottingham, he has worked for the British Council in London. He writes about contemporary art for Frieze and has also written exhibition catalogues for contemporary artists including Sam Taylor-Wood, Ian Davenport and Gilbert & George. His novels include The Conclave, Saint Rachel and Perfect Tense and his most recent books are a non-fiction portrait of the last decade of the 20th century, entitled The Nineties: When Surface was Depth (2002), and Roxyism (2004), a new book about the art rock group Roxy Music.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Vintage
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0099440652
• ISBN 13: 9780099440659
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 176
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible