On Late Style

On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain

One of Said's most celebrated works has been republished in a simplified Chinese translation, fully revised after 13 years.
300+ Chinese translator's notes to help readers deeply understand the original text. Rather than embrace the trend, it is better to be out of tune with it.
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In his captivating final book, Said sets out to examine how late style can explain the evolution of a creative career by selecting essays, poems, novels, films, and operas. He explores how dying artists can introduce "untimely and abnormal" works, as seen in the late works of Thomas Mann, Richard Strauss, Jean Genet, and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. He also examines Beethoven's "Missa solemnis," Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte," and Euripides's "The Dionysus" and "Iphigenia at Aulis."
Said notes that one can certainly find a "supernatural tranquility" in late works that "culminates [the author's] lifelong aesthetic effort," but in this book he is discussing the late period as art that is "uncompromising, difficult, and irreconcilably contradictory." Said sees these works as full of profound conflict and an almost incomprehensible complexity that stands in stark contrast to the popular work of the time, yet they are truly works of genius in each artist's particular field.
"On Late Style" is eloquent, insightful, and highly enlightening, and can be regarded as Said's outstanding late work.

2022-07-01

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