The Libera Me Domine
 | |
| Author | Robert Pinget |
|---|---|
| Original title | Le Libera |
| Translator | Barbara Wright |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Éditions de Minuit Calder & Boyars Red Dust |
| Publication date | 1968 |
| Publication place | Paris |
Published in English | 1972 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 215 |
| ISBN | 9780714503394 |
| LC Class | PZ4.P653 Li |
Le Libera (Éditions de Minuit, 1968), translated as The Libera Me Domine, is the ninth novel by Swiss-born French writer Robert Pinget. The title is a reference to a Catholic liturgical chant sung at funerals ("Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda" which translates as "Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal on that fearful day").[1]
The novel was translated into English by Barbara Wright for Calder and Boyars in 1972.[2]. The Red Dust edition includes a note from the author at the end of the text, not present in the original French.
Background and composition
Plot summary
Reception
In The New York Times, John Sturrock writes: "Like each of Mr. Pinget's novels, The Libera Me Domine Is the record of someone failing lamentably to construct a single coherent story, but that record is so rivetingly, so eloquently told, that this failure has to go down as a thumping success . . . Mr. Pinget's are spoken novels, written in order to be heard. His chief interest in writing them, he has said, is to impersonate a particular 'tone' of voice and to sustain this over many pages. In a book such as The Libera Me Domine, the voice is beautifully consistent and rhythmic, and its monologue is irresistible."[3]
An anonymous reviewer in The Virginia Quarterly Review writes: "Like Beckett, with whom he has marked affinity, Pinget concerns himself with the timbre of human speech in its more problematic self-definitions. Apart from L'Inquisitoire, Libera Me Domine is Pinget's most notable accomplishment, and one which challenges the assimilative ingenuity of the cleverest reader of contemporary fiction."[4]
References
External links
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