Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard Summary and Reviews

Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard
by Isak Dinesen

Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $7.99
You Save: $6.96 (47%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.97 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Isak Dinesen
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1993-06-01
ISBN: 0679743332
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Vintage

Book Reviews of Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard

Book Review: The Immortal Story and Others
Summary: 5 Stars

It's a fact that the best stories of all are those that nowadays are told mainly to children. No grown-up author would dare to invent a story like "The Snow Queen", "Thumbelina" or "Beauty and the Beast", and few would be able to.
If any writer comes close to the unforced magic of those stories no-one ever had to write, it must be Isak Dinesen. Sadly her output of fiction was small: this book, "Seven Gothic Tales", "Winter's Tales", "Last Tales", and her novel, the curious "Angelic Avengers", not quite a parody but not exactly serious, an entire book written in inverted commas.

Is there such a thing as Destiny? Do our intertwining lives somehow form a pattern like an inconceivably vast parquet-floor? Looking around I'm forced to say, No. But the creators of the "Arabian Nights" thought so, and Karen Blixen, at least when she turned into Isak Dinesen, clearly agreed with them, or tried to. Perhaps that's why she liked to dwell in the past, usually the late 18th or early 19th centuries, when it still seemed credible that a life might form an intricate shape, as if poured into a mould.

These stories are conceived and executed with a skill as dazzling as lightning and as quiet as summer grass. You feel she could amaze the reader far more if she chose, but that her profound courtesy prevents her. When she pauses for a moment to explain how her characters feel or why they react the way they do, she tells you things so piercingly correct that you feel almost shocked. At the bottom of these stories is a mystery that is not at all philosophical, a sadness that is not tragic, a poetry not made up of beautiful words, and a wisdom like that of a child who says things that she herself doesn't understand.

Literature & Fiction Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Back to the Classics
Monkey: Folk Novel of China ImageMonkey: Folk Novel of China
by Wu Ch'eng-en
Grove Press; Published: 1994-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: $13.00
The Code of the Woosters ImageThe Code of the Woosters
by P.G. Wodehouse
Vintage; Published: 2005-04-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops: $13.95
Confessions of Zeno ImageConfessions of Zeno
by Italo Svevo
Vintage; Published: 1989-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $49.97
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth ImageThe White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
by Robert Graves
Faber and Faber; Published: 1999-08-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.49
Price in other shops: $33.05
Lafcadio's adventures, ImageLafcadio's adventures,
by Andre Gide
VINTAGE BOOKS @; Published: 0000; Paperback; Book
I'm Not Stiller ImageI'm Not Stiller
by Max Frisch
Dalkey Archive Pr; Published: 2006-11-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.16
Price in other shops: $13.50
Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard ImageAnecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard
by Isak Dinesen
Vintage; Published: 1993-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.33
Price in other shops: $14.95
The Professor's House (Virago Modern Classics) ImageThe Professor's House (Virago Modern Classics)
by Willa Cather
Virago UK; Published: 2006-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.67
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays ImageThe Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
by Albert Camus
Vintage; Published: 1991-05-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.18
Price in other shops: $12.95
The Death of the Heart ImageThe Death of the Heart
by Elizabeth Bowen
Anchor; Published: 2000-05-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.39
Price in other shops: $14.95
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Carnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales ImageCarnival: Entertainments and Posthumous Tales
by Isak Dinesen
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1979-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $23.00
Master and Man and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) ImageMaster and Man and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)
by Leo Tolstoy
Penguin Classics; Published: 2005-12-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.61
Price in other shops: $15.00
Out of Africa (Modern Library) ImageOut of Africa (Modern Library)
by Isak Dinesen
Modern Library; Published: 1992-09-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.36
Price in other shops: $19.95
Daguerreotypes and Other Essays ImageDaguerreotypes and Other Essays
by Isak Dinesen
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1984-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.85
Price in other shops: $19.00
Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller ImageIsak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller
by Judith Thurman
Picador; Published: 1995-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.60
Price in other shops: $19.00
Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass ImageOut of Africa and Shadows on the Grass
by Isak Dinesen
Vintage; Published: 1989-10-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops: $14.95
Last Tales ImageLast Tales
by Isak Dinesen
Vintage; Published: 1991-12-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.94
Price in other shops: $14.00
Seven Gothic Tales ImageSeven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen
Vintage; Published: 1991-12-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: $15.95
Babette's Feast ImageBabette's Feast
Release date: 2001-01-23; DVD
Best price: $6.79
Price in other shops: $14.98
Winter's Tales ImageWinter's Tales
by Isak Dinesen
Vintage; Published: 1993-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $14.95