Steiner's brilliant and elegant new book draws on episodes from his life to explore the central themes and ideas of his thinking and writing over the course of much of our troubled century. An exploration of the ideas of the life of a major and brilliant thinker, the closest we will get to an autobiography.
Errata: An Examined Life: A Life in Ideas (Master Minds)
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About the Author
George Steiner is an Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge and Professor of English at the University of Geneva.
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Rain, particularly to a child, carries distinct smells and colours. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Rain, particularly to a child, carries distinct smells and colours. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is sub-titled 'an examined life'; it is not a classic autobiography, although there are fascinating and illuminating details of Steiner's early life,as a child in Austria and Paris, a teenager in N York and a student at Chicago University. It is more an examination and analysis of the lifelong development of thoughts and interests - many reflected in other of his books. There are chapters on music, language and educational developments in the 20th century; tributes to some of those who were his teachers, and a thought-provoking chapter on the Jews, for which alone, the book is more than worth reading.
It is not an easy book - as with much of Steiner's writing, one needs more than one dictionary, but at the end the reader will certainly feel that much has been learnt. It is valuable and instructive and the small insights into Steiner's attitude to his own success in life are salutory.
It is not an easy book - as with much of Steiner's writing, one needs more than one dictionary, but at the end the reader will certainly feel that much has been learnt. It is valuable and instructive and the small insights into Steiner's attitude to his own success in life are salutory.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Humorous, generous, spiritually illuminating, self-deprecating, and moving - in my case, to many tears. Not qualities one immediately associates with complex philosophical writing. The feel of 'Errata' is valedictory, 'as the close comes nearer.' George Steiner returns to the concerns of earlier works, and comments on their reception (or lack of it). There are summaries and elaborations of lifelong preoccupations: the disjunction of word and world, the meanings of monotheism, the importance of art, meaning and silence, the sense of place, etc. But the confessional element is stronger here than elsewhere in this formidable thinker's shimmering, life-affirming opus. He states convictions, and exposes his theology, unguardedly, and should be thanked for doing so. This is a book of immense learning and great wonder.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By JGM
Format:Paperback
George Steiner is one of the most learned and brilliant men currently writing on philosophical and literary matters. He exists, like his works, in a number of traditions, nations, cultures, languages and disciplines: He is a literary artist, philosopher, fine arts critic, public intellectual and internationalist. This book may be his most accessible work, yet it is not for the ignorant nor for those in search of mindless entertainment. It makes great demands of the reader, yes, but only because it delivers a great deal too.
The book is a memoir of a European childhood shadowed by war (Steiner was born in Paris), of his elite education (Harvard, Chicago, Oxford) and self-discovery; and of the life-long struggle to come to terms both with the forces of evil in light of the experience of the Jews and the intellectual project of the West during the "dismal" twentieth century.
These themes are intertwined in this fascinating man's life.
With the passing of the years, I sense that there has been a darkening in his perspective, a pessimism with regard to the redemptive powers of literature and the -- perhaps inevitable -- "silence" that results from the humanist's confrontation with what is, literally, "unspeakable." Steiner has wondered: "If a man can read Goethe and listen to Schubert in the evening and then go to work in the morning in a concentration camp ... so much for culture." To say this is tacitly to question his own life's work and his values. He is concerned with the puzzles of translation, possibly because he is himself a translation of a sort -- and those of us who are equally "multicultural" will understand. He is also concerned with excellence and the preservation of standards. Those of us who value achievement will understand that too.
I look foward to reading anything that he writes in the future.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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Confessions of a man of letters
The best example of "Belles-Letres" in which Steiner frankly speaks about his amazing life and amazing love of knowledge, the ponderings of a sage for whom the words of... Read more
Published 4 months ago by PlumaSerrana
5.0 out of 5 stars
Steiner Examined
"Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no one will interfere with you? Read more
Published 20 months ago by RR Waller
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rewarding Reading, but not at Bedtime
Take time off, or create spare time to read this book. For me it's too intense for bedtime, as an alert mind is required to understand and enjoy the nuances. Read more
Published 23 months ago by N. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
The trials of a trilingual
An egregiously dazzling piece of writing from a man whose passion for thought and study glows incandescent. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 1999
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