The Server - Couverture souple

Parks, Tim

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1846555787 ISBN 13 : 9781846555787

Editeur : Harvill Secker, 2012

Synopsis

Sex is forbidden at the Dasgupta Institute. So what is the sparkling, magnetically attractive Beth Marriot doing here? Why is a young woman whose irrepressible vitality and confident ego were once set on conquest and stardom, now spending month after month serving in the vegetarian kitchen of a bizarrely severe Buddhist retreat?

Beth is fighting demons: a catastrophic series of events has undermined all prospect of happiness. Trauma leaves her no alternative but to bury herself in the austere asceticism of a community that wakes at 4am, doesn't permit eye contact, let alone speech, and keeps men and women strictly segregated. But the curious self dies hard. Conflicted and wayward, Beth stumbles on a diary and cannot keep away from it, or the man who wrote it. And the more she yearns for the purity of the retreat's silent priestess, the more she desires the priestess herself.

The Server sets western individualism against the Buddhist belief that what we call 'self' is insubstantial fantasy. Unsure of anything but pain and pleasure, Beth's constant invention and destruction of herself and the people around her is both riveting and highly entertaining.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. He lives in Milan.

Parks is the acclaimed author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, A Season with Verona, Teach Us to Sit Still, Italian Ways and Italian Life. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and has won many awards for both his work in English and his translations from the Italian, which include works by Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino, Roberto Calasso, Antonio Tabucchi and Niccolò Machiavelli.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvill Secker
• Date d'édition: 2012
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1846555787
• ISBN 13: 9781846555787
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 288
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible