Items related to The Centaur
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE PRIX DU MEILLEUR LIVRE ÉTRANGER
The Centaur is a modern retelling of the legend of Chiron, the noblest and wisest of the centaurs, who, painfully wounded yet unable to die, gave up his immortality on behalf of Prometheus. In the retelling, Olympus becomes small-town Olinger High School; Chiron is George Caldwell, a science teacher there; and Prometheus is Caldwell’s fifteen-year-old son, Peter. Brilliantly conflating the author’s remembered past with tales from Greek mythology, John Updike translates Chiron’s agonized search for relief into the incidents and accidents of three winter days spent in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. The result, said the judges of the National Book Award, is “a courageous and brilliant account of a conflict in gifts between an inarticulate American father and his highly articulate son.”
The Centaur is a modern retelling of the legend of Chiron, the noblest and wisest of the centaurs, who, painfully wounded yet unable to die, gave up his immortality on behalf of Prometheus. In the retelling, Olympus becomes small-town Olinger High School; Chiron is George Caldwell, a science teacher there; and Prometheus is Caldwell’s fifteen-year-old son, Peter. Brilliantly conflating the author’s remembered past with tales from Greek mythology, John Updike translates Chiron’s agonized search for relief into the incidents and accidents of three winter days spent in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. The result, said the judges of the National Book Award, is “a courageous and brilliant account of a conflict in gifts between an inarticulate American father and his highly articulate son.”
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From the Back Cover:
"A Triumph Of Love And Art."
From the Inside Flap:
-- The Washington Post
"A brilliant achievement...No one should need to be told that Updike has a mastery of the language matched in our time only by the finest poets."
-- Saturday Review
"A brilliant and moving novel."
-- The Baltimore Sun
"Unsurpassed...Natural, pertinent, fresh, subtle, and superbly written."
-- Newsweek
"A classic...A beautiful and memorable book."
-- The Critic
In a small Pennsylvania town in the late 1940s, schoolteacher George Caldwell yearns to find some meaning in his life. Alone with his teenage son for three days in a blizzard, Caldwell sees his son grow and change as he himself begins to lost touch with his life. Interwoven with the myth of Chiron, the noblest centaur, and his own relationship to Prometheus, The Centaur one of John Updike's most brilliant and unusual novels.
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- PublisherRandom House Trade Paperbacks
- Publication date1996
- ISBN 10 0449912167
- ISBN 13 9780449912164
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages304
- Rating
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The Centaur A Novel
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The Centaur A Novel
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.68. Seller Inventory # G0449912167I3N00
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.68. Seller Inventory # G0449912167I5N00
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The Centaur
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ISBN 13: 9780449912164
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Fair. No Jacket. Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.68. Seller Inventory # G0449912167I5N00
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ISBN 13: 9780449912164
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.68. Seller Inventory # G0449912167I4N00
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The Centaur
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ISBN 13: 9780449912164
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.68. Seller Inventory # G0449912167I4N10
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Book Description Condition: Acceptable. The item is very worn but continues to work perfectly. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing (age related spots and browning). May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials. Seller Inventory # 31URM800ELF4_ns
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The Centaur : A Novel
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Book Description Condition: Good. Reissue. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 2341963-6
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