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A carregar... Zeropolis : The Experience of Las Vegaspor Bruce Bégout
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Las Vegas, an artificial city brought to life in the heart of the Mojave desert, is the ultimate urban temptation: its shopping malls, theme parks and casinos offer an unceasing parade of entertainments and diversions. Its architecture combines slick, commercial seduction with a childish, cartoon-like appearance; its streets and arcades are constantly animated with visitors and residents willingly submitting to the opium of this spectacular place. Las Vegas has always fascinated those who write about the American malaise, from Tom Wolfe to J. G. Ballard, but B#65533;gout reveals the city’s other side, adding a valuable philosophical dimension to the nightmarish, fantastic visions that haunt the imagination of novelists and film-makers. The author draws minutely detailed portraits in the form of city scenes – portraits that are often tragic and sometimes extremely comic. B#65533;gout lets himself be dragged into this party, this "paradise for bastards", as Nick Tosches calls it. For B#65533;gout, Las Vegas is the consummation of the modern city, the ultimate destination of our urban experiments, the great supermarket of the global village. "Neither near nor far, neither here nor elsewhere, Las Vegas is distinguished by nothingness. For us it is zeropolis, the non-city that is the very first city, just as zero is the very first number." "This is a real gem, as brilliant and remarkable as its subject"—Livres Hebdo "B#65533;gout felicitously combines the philosopher’s capacity for thinking with the novelist’s descriptive power. A success."—Le Nouvel Observateur Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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 Google Books — A carregar...GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)979.3135History and Geography North America Great Basin and West Coast U.S. NevadaClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia: Sem avaliações.É você?Torne-se num Autor LibraryThing. |
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Like the other Topographics books I've read this one is pretty much unclassifiable. Like the others it's a very personal take on a place and wanders here and there rather than travelling from A to B--and is all the better for that.
Begout sometimes over-generalises to the point of unfairness--how can he possibly know what all those passers-by are thinking, or how they passed the bus journey to the city?--and reaches some conclusions that are arguable: The appeal of gambling may indeed as he says lie in that moment of 'pure possibility' before the outcome is known, but does it follow that the secondary goal is to lose? But it scarcely matters, and he makes excellent points about fun and the spectacle. 'Fun' here is the puerile as opposed to the youthful, the fleeting thrill that leaves no trace as opposed to recreation, which heightens vitality. In Las Vegas, one can have all the fun one desires because all desires are fulfilled there. Because these desires are surveilled, as it were, they are controlled and the spectacle of fun is all one does desire even while it sucks out the essence of and replaces real life. Begout's solution: High-tail it outta that place, boy, while you still can.
One other thing about Reaktion publications--the books themselves are often very nice things, with end-flaps, thick pages, and a good feel. And this one has many gorgeous photographs of the grotesque.For me, it would be well worth buying Zeropolis new rather than slightly battered.