Friedrich Dürrenmatt -Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Stanlio
The Pledge is a detective novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, published in 1958, which was initially written by the Swiss author as a screenplay for the film Il mostro di Mägendorf by Ladislao Vajda. more
Friedrich Dürrenmatt -La panne. Una storia ancora possibile
Stanlio
The title represents the underlying message of the story: as stated in the first chapter of the introduction, even a trivial car breakdown illustrates how a small incident can change the course of a life. In the modern world, the author argues in this prologue, the actions of a single individual can trigger chain reactions even on a universal scale, and consequently, chance has a profound influence on the events of every single man's life, in his private world. (from wiki) more
Alexandre Dumas -Il conte di Montecristo
Stanlio
The story is set in Italy, France, and the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, during the years between 1815 and 1838 (from the end of the reign of Napoleon I to the reign of Louis-Philippe). The main themes addressed include justice, revenge, forgiveness, and mercy. (cit. wiki) more
Alexandre Dumas -I tre moschettieri
Stanlio
- AD displays no small qualities of a great writer... First and foremost, a sovereign shamelessness; a blend of complicity and outrage towards the reader; no sentimentality... the taste for play, for misrepresentation; honest moral deficiency; a noble guiltery, which dictates the exact move to unleash the willing credulity of the public. (G. Manganelli)
- For my part, I do not feel the blush that others would feel flooding their faces when I say that I enjoy and consider the Trois mousquetaires by Alexandre Dumas père to be conducted with great liveliness and flair. Many still read and enjoy them without any offense to poetry, but hide their pleasure within like one would for illicit delights, and it is good to encourage them to lay aside their false shame and their accompanying embarrassment (Benedetto Croce) more
Charles Dickens -Canto di Natale
Stanlio
Stanlio

Charles Dickens — Canto di Natale | DeRank™: 0,00

- It is the most important of the Christmas Books series.
- It combines the taste for gothic storytelling with a commitment to the fight against poverty and child exploitation, tackling illiteracy: issues seemingly exacerbated by the Poor Law, a convenient but ineffective and harmful stopgap devised by the upper classes.
- I wonder if perhaps you have read Dickens' Christmas Books - Robert Louis Stevenson asked a friend [...] - I have read two of them, and I cried like a child, making an impossible effort to stop. As God is my witness, they are so beautiful, and I feel so good after reading them. I want to go out and do good for someone [...] Oh, how wonderful it is that a man was able to write books like these, filling people's hearts with compassion! (cit. wiki) more
Charles Dickens -Il nostro comune amico
Stanlio
- Some pages of this manuscript were lost by Dickens in 1865 during a train accident on the train, which had departed from the port of Folkestone, taking the author to London, derailing at Staplehurst; several sheets were recovered by the writer. The incident is discussed in the book's postscript.

- Many literary critics consider "Our Mutual Friend" to be the most complex and desperate novel by the English author, in which his last "remnants" of illusions about the progressive function of the bourgeoisie have now disappeared, and even the proletariat emulates and tries to imitate it; they have compared it to a kaleidoscope, through which he analyzed social classes and people. (cit. wiki) more
Charles Dickens -Casa Desolata
Stanlio
Stanlio

Charles Dickens — Casa Desolata | DeRank™: 0,00

- It is considered one of the author's most successful novels and contains one of the broadest, most complex, and intriguing groups of secondary characters in his entire literary corpus, intertwined with various subplots.
- The fierce attack launched by Dickens on the British judicial system is motivated in part by his personal experience as a law practitioner...
- Although Dickens' unsparing portrayal of the lawyers and judges of the Chancery is largely undeserved and exaggerated, the novel helped in the modernization of the entire judicial system, culminating in the legal reform of 1870. (source: wiki) more
Charles Dickens -David Copperfield
Stanlio
Stanlio

Charles Dickens — David Copperfield | DeRank™: 0,00

- Original title: "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (which he never meant to publish on any account)"
- CD said: Of all my books, this is the one I love the most...
- Many elements of the novel are inspired by events in the author's own life; it can indeed be considered the fictionalized autobiography of the great 19th-century writer, the most autobiographical of all the books he wrote. (Anil Sehrawat)
- The work is also considered an industrial novel, because it reflects the misery experienced during the industrial revolution, when the exploitation of women and children in factories was widespread. (source: wiki) more
Charles Dickens -La bottega dell'antiquario
Stanlio
- The story follows young Nell, who lives alone with her maternal grandfather (whose name is never revealed) in an old house in London called The Old Curiosity Shop because the ground floor houses a shop full of antiques. Following a series of gambling debts, the old man is forced to flee at night, accompanied by little orphan Nell.
- Throughout the narrative, the two encounter various and peculiar characters, such as puppeteers, a kind and gentle Master, the ambitious owner of a wax museum, where they work and temporarily stay, a dog trainer, and a worker who speaks with the fire of his forge... (cit. wiki) more
Charles Dickens -Nicholas Nickleby
Stanlio
Stanlio

Charles Dickens — Nicholas Nickleby | DeRank™: 0,00

The young Nicholas Nickleby finds himself, at a young age, having to support his family after the loss of his father. The family, having moved to the chaotic London of the 1800s, seeks support from the brother of the deceased, Ralph Nickleby, who will soon reveal his wicked and selfish nature. (from wiki) more
Charles Dickens -Oliver Twist
Stanlio
Stanlio

Charles Dickens — Oliver Twist | DeRank™: 0,00

- It is one of Dickens' most famous and influential works. It was the first novel in the English language to feature a boy as the protagonist and one of the earliest examples of a social novel.
- Through a subversion of the coming-of-age story and a disenchanted dark humor, the novel examines the ills of Victorian England: poverty, child labor, urban crime, and the intrinsic hypocrisy of Victorian culture.
(cit. wiki) more
Charles Dickens -Il Circolo Pickwick
Stanlio
The most gripping and delightfully irresponsible novel by Dickens, inhabited by "comic characters" that "transcend the limits of bizarre eccentricity in human significance" (Mario Praz) more
Fëdor Dostoevskij -Le notti bianche
Stanlio
Beginning:
A dreamer, isolated from reality and any friendships, during a night walk meets, by the riverside, a girl who awakens in him the feeling of love. Her name is Nasten'ka...

End:
Nasten'ka sends a letter... and arranges a meeting for the night that will not happen.
Then, she decides to forget him, though with little success, and in her, it seems, the same feeling that the dreamer experiences has also been born.
Everything ends when the man, who had not forgotten her, arrives at the meeting on the fourth night, reappearing in the girl's life.
(from wiki) more
Fëdor Dostoevskij -Il giocatore
Stanlio
Stanlio

Fëdor Dostoevskij — Il giocatore | DeRank™: 0,00

- it’s a novel dictated in just under a month
- Written out of necessity (the writer needed to pay off gambling debts)
- It analyzes gambling in all its forms with the different types of players, from wealthy European nobles to the poor souls betting all their possessions, to the typical thieves of the casinos
- It is also a study of the various peculiarities of European populations
(cit. wikipedia) more
Fëdor Dostoevskij -L'idiota
Stanlio
Stanlio

Fëdor Dostoevskij — L'idiota | DeRank™: 0,00

"For a long time, an idea has been tormenting me, but I was afraid to turn it into a novel because it is an idea that is too difficult, and I am not prepared for it, even though it is extremely seductive and I love it. This idea is to depict an absolutely good man. Nothing, in my opinion, can be more difficult than this, especially nowadays."
.: Fëdor Michajlovic Dostoevskij :. more
Fëdor Dostoevskij -Ricordi dal sottosuolo
Stanlio
An unnamed space of literature and soul emerges and is outlined: the underground, a place of all that consciousness vainly attempts to set aside.
And it is like the sudden emergence of a continent: no one, after having explored it, will ever forget the shrill, penetrating, shameless voice that speaks in these pages and poses questions that leave one speechless.
Are we really "convinced that only the normal and the positive, in short only well-being, is advantageous for man?
That reason cannot be mistaken about these advantages?
Is it not possible that man does not only like to feel well?
That he actually equally likes suffering?
That feeling bad is just as advantageous to him as feeling good?" (from Adelphi) more
Daniel Defoe -La vita e le avventure di Robinson Crusoe
Stanlio
Re-read later in life, in its entirety, it will appear to us as a new book: for example, as a parable of modern man, eager, determined to dominate the world outside of him, and who finds his salvation in the creation of objects, which "restores dignity and beauty to common actions, to common things." The fundamental data of the story are now known to us, and our attention will be free to focus on the details, on those minute facts that Defoe's art employs (and it can also be said that he was the first great modern "reporter") to make such an "extraordinary" story plausible. "Reiterating that in the foreground there is nothing but a clay bowl," as Virginia Woolf says, "he persuades us to see remote islands, and the solitude of the human soul." (from Adelphi) more
Frank Zappa -Them or Us
Stanlio
Stanlio

Frank Zappa — Them or Us | DeRank™: 0,00

There’s also an unreleased version of Valley Girl (with Moon Zappa on vocals) overdubbed and played in reverse. more
Joseph Conrad -La linea d'ombra
Stanlio
Stanlio

Joseph Conrad — La linea d'ombra | DeRank™: 0,00

It deals with the growth and development of the protagonist's personality and character during his journey to become the captain of the ship Orient. Upon closer inspection, for Conrad, the shadow line is that undefined, personal, and at the same time universal moment and journey of realizing one's independence and, simultaneously, the feeling of being alone in front of and in the world. Keys to this sudden, almost instantaneous passage are the overcoming of guilt and the seemingly opposite feeling of unworthiness for one's being: a overcoming that occurs alongside the acceptance of the responsibility to be oneself as a human being. (cit. wiki) more
Joseph Conrad -Il duello
Stanlio
Stanlio

Joseph Conrad — Il duello | DeRank™: 0,00

The Duel: A Military Tale, this story was brought to the screen by Ridley Scott in the 1977 film "The Duellists" featuring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel; since then, some Italian translations of the tale have been titled "I duellanti." It is the story of two French officers, whose lives are shaped by a grotesque duel that began in 1801 and ended 30 years later. more