An edition of A considerable town (1978)

A considerable town

1st ed.
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Last edited by Encore Shops
April 25, 2023 | History
An edition of A considerable town (1978)

A considerable town

1st ed.
  • 0 Ratings
  • 0 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 0 Have read

The incomparable M.F.K. Fisher, of whom Auden said, "I do not know of anyone in the United States today who writes better prose," evokes the Marseille she has known and loved for almost fifty years. What she has written, she protests, is not a guidebook; rather, it is an effort "to write something about the town itself, through my own senses."
Nevertheless, it is hard to conceive of a guide more fascinating than M.F.K. Fisher as she shares all that she sees and knows and feels about the old port and quays, as she relishes the succulent fruits of the salty soil and the salty sea that embrace Marseille; as she talks with taxi drivers, waivers, concierges, a gabby French doctor, and an Inspector Maigret-like harbor master; as she looks, always, beyond the honky-tonk exteriors of some of the brash modern streets and feels in her bones their ancient sources.
The whole human parade fascinates her-the jugglers, the fortunetellers, the pimps, the hollow-chested Pinball Boys, the She-Wolf barkers who intimidate tourists into their fishhouses. Through her eyes we perceive as part of the essential fabric of this cradle of civilization the aspects of the town that so horrify Anglo-Saxons. "Ports are places of traffic," she notes, and since ancient times this port of ports has been trading in everything from olive oil and salt to white slaves and heroin-in fact, "In most of our human commodities since before Protis, the Phocean, went there in about 600 B.C."
Mrs. Fisher scans the centuries, evoking the days of the great slave galleys, the horrors of the Plague. But she finds "this collective evil balanced by a wonderful healthiness," and it is to this that she instinctively responds as she probes the indestructible nature of the Marseilles people or glories in the light-blazing basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde on the promontory, "the Good Mother of all navigators."
M.F.K. Fisher gives us what is in many ways her most profound and searching book, as she reflects upon and rediscovers this mysterious, indefinable place that has meant so much to her over the years. A Considerable Town will delight, surprise, and nourish all of her readers-those who have long been addicted to M.F.K. Fisher's work, those who have recently discovered her, as well as those who many be making her acquaintance for the first time.

Publish Date
Publisher
Knopf
Language
English
Pages
208

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: A considerable town
A considerable town
1978, Knopf
in English - 1st ed.

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Book Details


Published in

New York

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
944/.91
Library of Congress
DC801.M37 F57 1978

The Physical Object

Pagination
208 p. ;
Number of pages
208

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL4551123M
Internet Archive
considerabletown00fish
ISBN 10
0394427114
LCCN
77020369
OCLC/WorldCat
3481968
Library Thing
387994
Goodreads
250675

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April 25, 2023 Edited by Encore Shops description
February 13, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot remove fake subjects
October 14, 2011 Edited by EdwardBot remove duplicate authors
October 11, 2011 Edited by ImportBot import new book
December 8, 2009 Created by ImportBot add works page