Over many years and many journeys, Daniel Schwartz has patiently and meticulously photographed one of mankind's supreme monuments - the Great Wall of China. Schwartz was the first foreigner ever to be allowed such privileged access to the Wall. From the Yellow River westward he travelled through mountains and deserts and frozen grasslands to the borders of Central Asia. China's new policy of openness encouraged him recently to revisit the Wall and to photograph areas that had been closed to him on previous journeys. To place the photographs in context, the Chinese historian Luo Zhewen, who had dedicated his life to the study of the great wall, has written an essential brief history. Also included in Jorge Luis Borges's meditation 'The Wall and the Books' and an extract from Franz Kafka's short story 'The Great Wall of China'. This extraordinary project is at once a beautiful photographic essay, an intriguing conceptual art project, and a personal odyssey. Daniel Schwartz, with his prfound and haunting vision of the Great Wall, has made not only a unique document but a book that is a work of art in itself.
The Great Wall of China
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Daniel Schwartz, the award-winning photographer, is the author of Delta: The Perils, Profits and Politics of Water in South and Southeast Asia, also published by Thames & Hudson.
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First Sentence
those, and I am one of them, who find even a little ordinary-sized mole disgusting, would probably have died of disgust if they had seen the giant mole that was observed a few years ago, not far from a small village which gained a certain passing notoriety on that account. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
those, and I am one of them, who find even a little ordinary-sized mole disgusting, would probably have died of disgust if they had seen the giant mole that was observed a few years ago, not far from a small village which gained a certain passing notoriety on that account. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This particular edition of Kafka's unfinished works is just as breathtaking as his complete novels and world-known works. Yet, this little volume is the one that has the power to captivate the reader at an intrinsically personal level, ample with spiritual connotations. This is particularly the case with the two brief chapters compiling his aphorisms. Albeit "The Great Wall of China" being the one story that has monopolized the heading of the book, the content and the life-shifting power of his unfinished stories would better fit under the title of another, a smaller story - "An Everyday Occurrence"...As you'll see from the cover The Sunday Times has reviewed this collection of Kafka's works as definitive "of the soul of modern man".
He is known as a harsh observer of the world of the 20th century. Nevertheless, every piece of story and advise he has for us, transcends wisdoms from ancient worlds and/or call for fundamentally religious values. The merge of both distinctive worlds is thus delivered in a conundrum of contemporary art objects that masterfully transcend a subconsciously elegant truth, such as: "Everyone is kind to A., rather in the way that one tries to protect an excellent billiard-table even from good players, until such time as the great player arrives, who carefully examines the surface, will tolerate no premature blemish, but then, when he begins play himself, lets himself go with ruthless fury". To me it resonates a masterful painting and this tiny volume contains at least 200 of them.
It's a definite buy. The only reason I gave a 4 star for it is because I found the editor's preface too concise. Authored by Malcolm Pasley, an Oxford Emeritus Fellow, known as the most notorious of Kafka editors, the passage should have paid an extended tribute to Kafka's unfinished works.
He is known as a harsh observer of the world of the 20th century. Nevertheless, every piece of story and advise he has for us, transcends wisdoms from ancient worlds and/or call for fundamentally religious values. The merge of both distinctive worlds is thus delivered in a conundrum of contemporary art objects that masterfully transcend a subconsciously elegant truth, such as: "Everyone is kind to A., rather in the way that one tries to protect an excellent billiard-table even from good players, until such time as the great player arrives, who carefully examines the surface, will tolerate no premature blemish, but then, when he begins play himself, lets himself go with ruthless fury". To me it resonates a masterful painting and this tiny volume contains at least 200 of them.
It's a definite buy. The only reason I gave a 4 star for it is because I found the editor's preface too concise. Authored by Malcolm Pasley, an Oxford Emeritus Fellow, known as the most notorious of Kafka editors, the passage should have paid an extended tribute to Kafka's unfinished works.
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Franz Kafka has to be one of the most important authors of the 20th century. His style has influenced a whole genre and even a word to describe it - Kafkaesque.
Works like The Castle and The Trial are true classics, unlike anything you've ever read before, so it's no surprise that other unpublished material has been trawled through and published for completist fans.
This set of stories - many of them uncompleted - has the mark of Kafka's style, but the quality varies considerably and is not a true reflection on his best work. Longer, later works like The Burrow and Investigations of a Dog are worth the wait, but others are mere sketches that give an insight into his workings but little else.
If you've never read Kafka before, don't start here - start with the full length novels. If you've read everything and can't get enough, this may just keep you satisfied for a while.
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