About the Book: On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain
(Bloomsbury Revelations)
In his fascinating last book, Edward Said looks at a selection of essays, poems,
novels, films, and operas to determine what late style may explain about the
evolution of the creative life. He discusses how the approaching death of an
artist can make its way "with anachronism and anomaly" into his work, as was the
case in the late work of Thomas Mann, Richard Strauss, Jean Genet, Giuseppe
Tomasi di Lampedusa, and C. P. Cavafy. Said examines Beethovens Missa Solemnis,
Genets Le captif amoureux and Les paravents, Mozarts Così fan tutte, Viscontis
film