Uma Caixa de curiosidades - A case of curiosities

Allen Kurzweil

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

2001

384 páginas

12h 48m

ISBN-10: 0156012898

Português Brasileiro

Synopsis

In France, on the eve of the Revolution, a young man named Claude Page sets out to become the most ingenious and daring inventor of his time. In the course of a career filled with violence and passion, Claude learns the arts of enameling and watchmaking from an irascible, defrocked abbé, apprentices himself to a pornographic bookseller, and applies his erotic erudition to the seduction of the wife of an impotent wigmaker. But it is Claude's greatest device-a talking mechanical head-that both crowns his career and leads to an execution as tragic as that of Marie Antoinette, and far more bizarre.

Hailed by critics for the shimmering brilliance of its inventions and its uncanny fidelity to the textures of the past, A Case of Curiosities places

Allen Kurzweil securely in the ranks of the finest literary artists of our time.
Annotation

The most exciting fiction debut in years, A Case of Curiosities has been praised from coast to coast. In France on the eve of Revolution, Claude Page sets out to become the most ingenious and daring inventor of his time. His greatest device—a talking mechanical head—both crowns his career and leads to his bizarre execution.
Chicago Tribune

Brilliantly playful . . clever indeed but also riotous, melodramatic and erotic, full of lore and lewdness and crackling with ideas and exhilarated imagination.

Resenhas (2)

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Idas e vindas no sec XVIII

Livro para ser lido com muita calma e respiração suave porque os movimentos do tempo e das pessoas vão levando a gente que nem brisa de final de tarde - Não se sabe se a noite será fria ou quente. A vida de um menino com a curiosidade e o olhar de um engenheiro em um tempo em que esta ciência era sustentada por um empirismo apaixonante. A maturidade impulsionada por muitos imprevistos, decepções e aconchegos e a caixa com lembranças que são registros vivos de um "memento hominem" - a celebração da vida. Maturação e perpetuação, este é o mote do livro. Equilíbrio frágil entre suavidade e tensão. Gostei muito.