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Anno Domini
Three Stories of the War:
Return No More
Cake
Sweet Mars
Return No More
Cake
Sweet Mars
- GenresFiction
205 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 1964
1 person is currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
George Steiner
188 books570 followersSee also: George A. Steiner, author on Management and Planning.
Dr. Francis George Steiner was an essayist, novelist, philosopher, literary critic, and educator. He wrote for The New Yorker for over thirty years, contributing over two hundred reviews. Among his many awards, he received The Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award from Stanford University 1998. He lived in Cambridge, England, with his wife, historian Zara Shakow Steiner.
In 1950 he earned an M.A. from Harvard University, where he won the Bell Prize in American Literature, and received his Ph.D. from Oxford University (Balliol College) on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1955. He was then a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for two years. He became a founding fellow of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge in 1961, and has been an Extraordinary Fellow there since 1969. Additionally, Steiner accepted the post of Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva in 1974, which he held for 20 years, teaching in four languages. He became Professor Emeritus at Geneva University on his retirement in 1994, and an Honorary Fellow at Balliol College at Oxford University in 1995. He later held the positions of the first Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St. Anne's College at Oxford University from 1994 to 1995, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002.
Dr. Francis George Steiner was an essayist, novelist, philosopher, literary critic, and educator. He wrote for The New Yorker for over thirty years, contributing over two hundred reviews. Among his many awards, he received The Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award from Stanford University 1998. He lived in Cambridge, England, with his wife, historian Zara Shakow Steiner.
In 1950 he earned an M.A. from Harvard University, where he won the Bell Prize in American Literature, and received his Ph.D. from Oxford University (Balliol College) on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1955. He was then a scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for two years. He became a founding fellow of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge in 1961, and has been an Extraordinary Fellow there since 1969. Additionally, Steiner accepted the post of Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva in 1974, which he held for 20 years, teaching in four languages. He became Professor Emeritus at Geneva University on his retirement in 1994, and an Honorary Fellow at Balliol College at Oxford University in 1995. He later held the positions of the first Lord Weidenfeld Professor of Comparative Literature and Fellow of St. Anne's College at Oxford University from 1994 to 1995, and Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University from 2001 to 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 28, 2017
The three long stories that comprise Anno Domini by George Steiner focus on WWII and its aftereffects on survivors: the guilt-ridden, the traumatized, and the haunted. I had read lots of Steiner's brilliant criticism and didn't know he wrote any fiction until I came across this volume a few weeks ago in the USED BOOKS section of Flyleaf in Chapel Hill.
Initially, I thought "Return No More," the first piece, explained why Steiner mostly wrote criticism. The prose stuttered, and the action and plot seemed abrupt and forced. Who would believe a German officer would return to a French village after the war and hope to marry the sister of a man he had had hanged for treachery against the Wehrmacht? Well, maybe no one, but the ending of this piece is brilliant and chilling, like something out of Shirley Jackson.
"Cake" is more fluidly written, very well-written. Again, the premise is forced: a young American literary scholar decides to stay on after WWII's outbreak and becomes active in the French Resistance and then is hidden away in a Belgian insane asylum (that's what they were called back then). There he encounters a group of intriguingly sick folk and a lissome Jewish girl, not at all mentally deficient, with whom he falls in love. Ultimately things do not turn out well, as one would expect, but the portrait of the girl is superb, and there are stretches of dialogue that are preternaturally good--full of insight casually shared.
Generally, Steiner has a phrase maker's brilliance. He is adept at compressing his erudition into a sentence, or a clause, while moving the story forward. These observations are psychological, historical, and aesthetic; they're always apt and make you blink with gratitude.
"Sweet Mars" sweepingly recounts the fates of privileged schoolmates, now hurled on the rocks of modernity by the storms of World War II. It's beautifully written. One minor character, who gets chucked out of the story by a divorce, an American named Vi, is more or less at the apex of bit parts in fiction. She's just so annoyingly smart. The two mates most attended to have more depth, great depth. Their school year friendship makes sense, their dilemmas post-war make sense, the pain they suffer makes sense. Here we have Steiner demonstrating how wars demolish souls. Writing against the grain of soldiers typically pounded into silence after their wars, Steiner opens up wretchedness as it is felt, a constant rain of misery, marriages destroyed, livers vanquished, ideals trampled, achievements belittled. At one point, Steiner raises the question of who is dead, after all--the survivors or the departed? Maybe the survivors, he suggests.
Toward the end of the piece, Steiner writes himself into a box he breaks out of in an odd way that I felt signaled a final downpour of drivel, but he recovers, and the final passages, the incomplete reconciliations, the returns to the scenes of battle, and the inevitable surrender are convincing, poignant and masterfully delivered.
Initially, I thought "Return No More," the first piece, explained why Steiner mostly wrote criticism. The prose stuttered, and the action and plot seemed abrupt and forced. Who would believe a German officer would return to a French village after the war and hope to marry the sister of a man he had had hanged for treachery against the Wehrmacht? Well, maybe no one, but the ending of this piece is brilliant and chilling, like something out of Shirley Jackson.
"Cake" is more fluidly written, very well-written. Again, the premise is forced: a young American literary scholar decides to stay on after WWII's outbreak and becomes active in the French Resistance and then is hidden away in a Belgian insane asylum (that's what they were called back then). There he encounters a group of intriguingly sick folk and a lissome Jewish girl, not at all mentally deficient, with whom he falls in love. Ultimately things do not turn out well, as one would expect, but the portrait of the girl is superb, and there are stretches of dialogue that are preternaturally good--full of insight casually shared.
Generally, Steiner has a phrase maker's brilliance. He is adept at compressing his erudition into a sentence, or a clause, while moving the story forward. These observations are psychological, historical, and aesthetic; they're always apt and make you blink with gratitude.
"Sweet Mars" sweepingly recounts the fates of privileged schoolmates, now hurled on the rocks of modernity by the storms of World War II. It's beautifully written. One minor character, who gets chucked out of the story by a divorce, an American named Vi, is more or less at the apex of bit parts in fiction. She's just so annoyingly smart. The two mates most attended to have more depth, great depth. Their school year friendship makes sense, their dilemmas post-war make sense, the pain they suffer makes sense. Here we have Steiner demonstrating how wars demolish souls. Writing against the grain of soldiers typically pounded into silence after their wars, Steiner opens up wretchedness as it is felt, a constant rain of misery, marriages destroyed, livers vanquished, ideals trampled, achievements belittled. At one point, Steiner raises the question of who is dead, after all--the survivors or the departed? Maybe the survivors, he suggests.
Toward the end of the piece, Steiner writes himself into a box he breaks out of in an odd way that I felt signaled a final downpour of drivel, but he recovers, and the final passages, the incomplete reconciliations, the returns to the scenes of battle, and the inevitable surrender are convincing, poignant and masterfully delivered.
January 31, 2024
I’ll be frank — I only read Return No More for my Creative Writing class, but WOW. George Steiner’s writing style is eloquent and vivid in a way literally no other writer could ever dream of emulating, and I’m so impressed and jealous all at once. I have to go back to this and take notes. Phenomenal
September 24, 2016
Una serie de relatos muy buenos. Sin lenguaje complejo, sin mucha referencia, historias de una guerra, fuera de ella.
Personalmente, el mejor, fue No regreses Nunca.
Personalmente, el mejor, fue No regreses Nunca.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews