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Last Tales Isak Dinesen ,

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Last Tales

Isak Dinesen , Karen Blixen

Last Tales Isak Dinesen , Karen Blixen Last Tales is a collection of twelve of the last tales that Isak Dinesen wrote before her death in 1962. They include seven tales from Albondocani, a projected novel that was never completed; "The Caryatids," an unfinished Gothic tale of a couple bedeviled by an old letter and a gypsy's spell; and three tales of winter, including "Converse at Night in ," a drunken, all-night conversation between a boy-king, a prostitute, and a poor young poet.

Last Tales Details

Date : Published December 1991 by Vintage (first published November 4th 1957) ISBN : Author : Isak Dinesen , Karen Blixen Format : Paperback 341 pages Genre : Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Classics, European Literature, Danish, Scandinavian Literature

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From Reader Review Last Tales for online ebook

Robert Walrod says

"The Cardinal's Third Tale," "Echoes," "The Caryatids," "A Country Tale"

Lindsay says

I was fairly amused with the bio, which said that the author married her cousin (my immature sense of humour). These are tales that you can imagine someone telling you, full of easily imagined characters and random offshoots. The stories were varied, but one of the problems I have with short stories is that you never really lose yourself in them. mlady_rebecca says

Shelving and rating this simply for the short story "The Blank Page" which I first read in college.

Terence Manleigh says

More wonderful, old-fashioned, magical tales from the incomparable Dinesen.

A.D. Jansen says

Not as compelling plot-wise, or as complex theme-wise, or as deep character-wise, or as rich language-wise, as or Winter’s Tales. But then again, those are two of the greatest books I’ve ever read, so take the three star rating with a grain of salt. It’s probably a little unrealistic to expect that she could sustain that level of brilliance throughout her entire career. Anyway, though this was something of a disappointment, I don’t remotely regret reading it, and I still plan to read the rest of Dinesen’s ouevre.

Stephaniedean says

I am currently re-reading this. This is a book I will keep coming back to again and again.

Elisabeth says

3.5 stars

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Andrew Miller says

I picked this book up from Arkbooks in Copenhagen (an English language bookseller) as I wanted to grab some works by Danish authors while there on holiday. As much as I knew a collection of Karen Blixen stories wasn't likely to be my thing, given my experience with , but I tried keeping an open mind throughout the book. Ultimately while I recognize her skill as a storyteller the themes and cast of characters weren't accessible for me. That doesn't make this a poor collection it just wasn't my taste.

Chris says

To get to from Copenhagen, one takes a train. One walks from the station, past a farm that seems bred Norwegian Fjords, past a restaurant, to the harbor, where ones turns left. Shortly thereafter, you are at the home of Isak Dinesen. It is a white house surrounded by green. It seems to exist in its own world. When I was there, it wasn’t very crowded, and most of the visitors were older, causing me to wonder if they were coming because of the books or because of the movie with and Robert Redford. After a tour of the house, one can visit Dinesen’s grave. It is set back, along a short path. It rests in a bird sanctuary. There is a stunning beauty and peacefulness about the whole plot of land. Plain on the outside but surrounding underneath. Layered, like Russian nesting dolls with the exception that the smaller ones, the ones buried deep inside, are more beautiful colored. It is a fitting home for Dinesen. It matches her fiction exactly.

For many people, Dinesen’s best work is Seven Gothic Tales or Out of Africa, but for me her best tale collection is Last Tales. This is because it contains the first short story I ever read by Dinesen, “The Cloak”, a story that I fell in love with, that made me hunt down Dinesen’s work.

In some ways, “The Cloak” is like Stockton’s “The Lady or the Tiger?”. The answer to the key question, the question that reader will ask is left unspoken, unanswered. It is left up to the reader, and the reader’s answer says more about the reader than about the writer, like Stockton’s short story. “The Cloak” is actually the start of a trilogy of stories that deal with the redemption and life of a man called Angelo. The three stories deal with the power of the human soul as well as the power faith. All the stories are haunting and touching. They deal with the soul.

Most of the stories in this collection focus on the aspects of faith and art that coincide, that ran in tandem. This is true from the first story of the collection, “The Cardinal’s First Tale”, which is about an artist who is also a priest. It also is about masks, and who we really are inside.

Then there is “The Blank Page” a wonderful story, very much like “Sorrow Acre” from Winter Tales. In this tale, Dinesen plays with the idea of the bloody bridal sheet as well as how stories become stories and story tellers become story tellers. It is a quiet tale.

“The Caryatids: An Unfinished Gothic Tale” discusses the price of knowledge, the cost of hidden knowledge, and the cost of knowledge that we hid from ourselves. It is a strange, effecting story. Gothic in tone, but human in its ending. As is the story that follows it, “Echoes”. This story is about a singer who has lost her voice, but finds it again.

“A Country Tale” deal with redemption in the sense of justice. What is justice? Can revenge go too far?

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Slightly similar in vein is “Copenhagen Season”, a dual plotted love story that shows understanding of the human heart, and the consequences that can come.

All the stories in this collection deal with forgiveness, whether it is an ability to forgive someone or an inability to forgiven oneself. All the souls deal with the effect of secrets upon the soul. All the stories deal with art and soul, how faith and art can be one.

Asya says

Rereading this because of "The Blank Page," upon a friend's suggestion (you know who you are!) I love what she writes about the art of narrative vs. character study and how these are 2 profoundly different ways of storytelling (this is in "The Cardinal's First Tale."

Brian says

Dinesen blends art and philosophy in an engaging way in many of these tales, particularly in the "Tales from Albondocani". Though not all part of the same story, the “Tales from Albondocani” nevertheless serve as strands that are woven together to suggest a philosophy of nothing else than that to which they owe their existence: story-telling. Dinesen takes her philosophy of story-telling not just to aesthetic levels but also to theological ones, as she draws parallels between finding meaning in a story to the discovery of oneself in life. Her tales have a blend of charm and mystery to them, some dealing with the supernatural, others with simple country life. But in all her stories one encounters characters seeking to develop meaningful existence in their lives, and the story showing the struggle of living out that development in a world that places limits on one’s efforts.

Annabelle says

Except for the last story, there are some excellent tales, stories within stories, and captivating visuals here. The catch: most of them are unfinished. And I don't think these were written intentionally without closure. They are simply unfinished. The yarns unfold like a thread of fairy tales, grisly ones. Incest, witchcraft, curses are in order. How and where did she get all this material? I really should read up on Isak Dinesen's biography... robyn says

She's a simply gorgeous writer.

I've been thinking about story-telling ever since I read it, weeks ago; there are a couple of stories here which either reference story telling, or are outright about it. You'll never read anything like her, and yet I can only really describe her by comparing her - to Victor Hugo or Somerset Maugham, the way that all three have of diving deeply into their characters' mind, of telling a story that is truly about a person, because it is of and in them... but that's not quite right either, because in this book at least not a lot actually HAPPENS to these people; small things, internal things, there is very little in the way of external drama that forces self

PDF File: Last Tales... 5 Read and Download Ebook Last Tales... revelation or a plot line - but I've read books full of dragons, wars, and the fall of kingdoms that struck less deeply.

I'd have given this 5 stars if only these stories were finished.

I thought about The Caryatids for days after I'd read it. That's the cruelest loose end of all, the sudden realization of exactly what mistake the heroine has made, and what is sure to happen; only, can she escape her fate? Perhaps! The narrator is not omniscient, we're not being told a story of the past! But the prospect was dismal.

The best and shortest story is The Blank Page. It's about story telling, about Story, and is a perfect demonstration of the craft by a master craftsman.

Heather says

Reading this is like going through a departed friend's last letters. Revealing in person and life craft intent; sometimes scattered and silly; mostly equally bold and mysterious, inventive, and warmly endearing. Karen/Isak is a masterful classical lit storyteller. Beguiling.

Cody says mmm probably not the ideal dinesen for me to start with. very disjointed, only some of which ascends to something that clicks... her prose is fine enough, but bad call on the book. back to dinesen drawing board...

Ivan says

Aku..aku...ga suka...

Anne says

I only read The Blank Page (which was a requirement for my English 11 class), and I would be outrageously lying if I said that I understood the tale in my first reading. In fact, much that I hate to admit this, I had to read this story of merely 1,000 words or so repeatedly to be able to comprehend what it was all about. No, it wasn't the writing that was particularly hard to understand...it was the prose in its entirety. What was the plot? What really was it all about? What significance did those linen portray? The questions would be endless. But once I was, even a little, beginning to formulate the meaning of everything, The Blank Page showed that you really had to think outside the box sometimes. And as readers, we need to read between the lines and try to seek what the author wants to tell us implicitly underneath those string of sentences.

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Hayley says

K. Blixon's imagination seems to reside in 19th century Italy and France. Devastating family secrets, child- brides, dynastic wealth, Catholicism, puppeteers, and betrayed sculptors dance before the reader in a layered experience that blends the fantastically picturesque with nuanced spiritual portraits.

Rachel says

If you don't mind the eerie feeling that the author managed to peek into all the ugliest corners of your soul one day when you weren't looking and is now painting your naked existence into what is either a tragedy or a comedy but you're not sure which--or if, like me, you rather like that feeling--Isak Dinesen is for you.

Andrius says

Overall this book is a real swan song for those who are familiar with Dinesen/Blixen’s work, and the worst place to start for those who aren’t.

This collection is a mix of Blixen’s unfinished work, structured in three groupings of stories. Two of these, New Gothic Tales and New Winter’s Tales, refer back to Blixen’s earlier collections. The third one is taken from The Albondocani, an Arabian Nights-esque novel of interweaving tales that was never finished. While I think that Last Tales is one of her finest books, I don’t recommend it as a starting point because of these significant references to previous works. Instead I would suggest reading Seven Gothic Tales and Winter’s Tales first and, if you enjoy them, coming back to this later on. For the rest of the review, then, I will be writing under the assumption that you are familiar with Blixen’s short stories.

In spite of the split structure of the book, I mostly didn’t sense any kind of disjointedness between the tales. They read as a continuous set of stories, connected by the same sort of beautiful, elevated writing style and some of Blixen’s favourite motifs and themes – artists, aristocrats and prostitutes; God, identity and passion. All of these Blixen staples figure so heavily that the stories feel like a highly concentrated version of everything she has previously written, sometimes almost to the point of caricature – such as in Converse at Night in Copenhagen, in which a chance meeting of a king, a poet, and a prostitute in the slums of Copenhagen results in a lofty philosophical discussion on God and humanity among other things.

This wasn’t a bad thing though. Even if Last Tales says nothing wholly new, it says it more beautifully and with more power than the previous stories, focusing the essential ‘points’ of her writing to a new sharpness. This isn’t present so much in the writing style – the book isn’t nearly as quotable as Seven Gothic Tales – as in the philosophy evident in the stories. This is especially true for many of the Albondocani tales, which are so tightly controlled and deliberate in their progression of narrative and ideas that they are often content to leave the most important things unsaid.

One story that was a big miss for me, however, was Caryatids, the only story in the book that’s explicitly said to be unfinished (the others, as far as I can tell, are finished stories taken from unfinished larger works). This is a story that had all the fantastical explicitness of The Monkey and almost none of its sense of direction and purpose, ending up as an overwrought, too literal and pointless revisiting of the indeterminate sort of horror present in Seven Gothic Tales.

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Favourites: The Cardinal's First Tale, Night Walk, Echoes, A Country Tale, Copenhagen Season.

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