Author: Arthur Phillips
- Fiction
- Ediciones B
- ISBN: 978-8402421302
- Release Date: 01-30-2013
Synopsis
The Tragedy of Arthur is an emotional and elaborately constructed tour de force from bestselling and critically acclaimed novelist Arthur Phillips, “one of the best writers in America” (The Washington Post).
Its doomed hero is Arthur Phillips, a young man struggling with a larger-than-life father, a con artist who works wonders of deception but is a most unreliable parent. Arthur is raised in an enchanted world of smoke and mirrors where the only unshifting truth is his father’s and his beloved twin sister’s deep and abiding love for the works of William Shakespeare—a love so pervasive that Arthur becomes a writer in a misguided bid for their approval and affection.Years later, Arthur’s father, imprisoned for decades and nearing the end of his life, shares with Arthur a treasure he’s kept secret for half a century: a previously unknown play by Shakespeare, titled The Tragedy of Arthur. But Arthur and his sister also inherit their father’s mission: to see the play published and acknowledged as the Bard’s last great gift to humanity. . . .
Unless it’s their father’s last great con.By turns hilarious and haunting, this virtuosic novel—which includes Shakespeare’s (?) lost King Arthur play in its five-act entirety—captures the very essence of romantic and familial love and betrayal. The Tragedy of Arthur explores the tension between storytelling and truth-telling, the thirst for originality in all our lives, and the act of literary mythmaking, both now and four centuries ago, as the two Arthurs—Arthur the novelist and Arthur the ancient king—play out their individual but strangely intertwined fates.
El siempre original Arthur Phillips, autor que ha estado en el radar de toda la crítica norteamericana más prestigiosa, se ha superado a sí mismo en este inteligente jugueteo literario, mezcla de narrativa, teatro y autobiografía, con él mismo como socarrón personaje que se infiltra en el mundo de Shakespeare, en la industria editorial y en su propia familia, provocando un jovial efecto. Arthur Phillips y su hermana gemela, Dana, mantienen una relación poco común con su padre, también llamado Arthur Phillips; un falsificador apasionado por distorsionar y envolver de magia lo cotidiano. A punto de morir, Arthur padre le entrega a su hijo una obra de Shakespeare que había permanecido oculta durante siglos y que ha sido descubierta por él, invitándole a editar esta obra maestra. Como albacea literario de este patrimonio, el hijo se cuestiona a menudo la procedencia fiable de la obra al mismo nivel que cuestiona durante este proceso filológico la fiabilidad de su familia; una familia tan excéntrica como disfuncional. Porque Arthur está plenamente convencido de que la obra shakesperiana es la más grande estafa llevada a cabo por su padre.
