They are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world asīy moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy

Idiocy is theįemale defect: intent on their private lives, women follow theirįate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in Her question made me remember that the word “idiot”Ĭomes from a Greek root meaning private person. Has been assassinated.” “Oh, dear!” she replied. “Switch on the telephone ! I must speak to my husband at once.Ī most terrible thing has happened. I rang for my nurse, and when she came I cried to her, Had been assassinated in the streets of Marseilles that morning’.

At the book's beginning she recalls being in hospital in 1934, and hearing on the radio ‘how the King of Yugoslavia

It's not a book to bolt: full of fascinating detail, often very funny in a mordant kind of way, and advancing several key Westian ideas: for instance that women are idiots and men lunatics. I'm reading it at the moment, in between other things. Magnus it certainly is: it's more than 1100 pages long, rich and detailed throughout more a meditation on how history shapes the present, and how both factor in specific identities, societies and cultures. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.There's a consensus among critics and readers that Rebecca West's enormous travelogue, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (1941) is her magnum opus. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the countrys history as well as its daily life.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans and the uneasy relationships among its ethnic groups. Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca Wests classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern. one of the great books of our time.' The New Yorker

Black lamb and grey falcon meaning