Catherine Cusset – författare

This work traces the moral meaning of pleasure in libertine works of 18th-century France. The author contends that libertine works are linked by an ""ethics of pleasure"" that teaches readers that vanity and sensual enjoyment are part of their moral being.

Winner of the 1996 Walker Cowen Memorial Prize, Catherine Cusset's No Tomorrow traces the moral meaning of pleasure in several libertine works of the eighteenth-century—Watteau's Pélerinage à l'île de Cythère, Prévost's Manon Lescaut, Crébillon's Les égarements du coeur et de l'esprit, the anonymous pornographic novel Thérèse philosophe, Diderot's La religieuse, and Vivant Denon's short story ""Point de lendemain.""In this ambitious book, Cusset reframes the often misunderstood genre that celebrates what Casanova calls ""the present enjoyment of the senses."" She contends libertine works are not, as is commonly thought, characterized by the preaching of sexual pleasure but are instead linked by an ""ethics of pleasure"" that teaches readers that vanity and sensual enjoyment are part of their moral being. Developing Roland Barthes's concept of ""the pleasure of the text,"" the author argues that the novel is a powerful vehicle for moral lessons, more so than philosophical or moral treatises, because it conveys such lessons through pleasure.Cusset reads the proliferation of libertine novels as a reaction against the denial of pleasure in the literature and culture of the time. In the midst of the century's metaphysical impulse to simplify human psychology, these works focus on the moments in which human contradictions are revealed.Cusset's analysis suggests that libertine novels offered the eighteenth century a more complex picture of moral being and ultimately contributed a lesson of tolerance to the Enlightenment.

With clear, vivid prose, this meticulously researched novel draws an intimate, moving portrait of the most famous living English painter.Born in 1937 in a small town in the north of England, David Hockney had to fight to become an artist. After leaving his home in Bradford for the Royal College of Art in London, his career flourished, but he continued to struggle with a sense of not belonging, because of his homosexuality, which had yet to be decriminalized, and his inclination for a figurative style of art not sufficiently "contemporary" to be valued. Trips to New York and California--where he would live for many years and paint his iconic swimming pools--introduced him to new scenes and new loves, beginning a journey that would take him through the fraught years of the AIDS epidemic. A compelling hybrid of novel and biography, Life of David Hockney offers an accessible overview of the painter who shook the world of art with a vitality and freedom that neither heartbreak nor illness nor loss could corrode.

In den 1960er-Jahren fand er aus der englischen Provinz nach Los Angeles und wurde einer der berühmtesten Künstler der Gegenwart – David Hockney. Unerschöpflich kreativ und vielseitig, voller Selbstvertrauen, Freiheit, Liebe zum Leben und zu schönen Männern. Der glückliche Zufall gesellte sich dazu. Catherine Cusset erzählt den Roman eines Künstlerlebens, das Freude macht.

"Ein intensives Leseerlebnis: Die Geschichte zweier Frauen spricht tiefgreifende und universelle Themen an." Bücher Zwei Leben, zwei Frauen, die scheinbar vieles trennt. Clarisse ist eine Abenteurerin, liebt das Reisen und die Männer. Ständig verliebt, erlebt sie hohe Höhen und fällt in tiefe Tiefen. Ève hingegen leitet einen Edel-Catering-Service und führt mit ihrem Mann eine stabile Ehe. Die eine wohnt in Paris, die andere in New York. Über Jahrzehnte hinweg bekommen wir die Lebensgeschichten der beiden Frauen erzählt, erfahren von dem geheimen Band, das sie eint, und werfen einen erhellenden Blick auf unsere Zeit, eine ganze Generation von Frauen, ihre Sehnsüchte, Lieben, Abgründe, das Muttersein und das Älterwerden. Und begreifen, wie viele Möglichkeiten es gibt, das Glück zu definieren. "Elegant und sehr französisch."  Donna"Pures Lesevergnügen!" Woman