The High Art of Failure
This book is something between a diary and a documentary, an autobiography and a chronicle, a confessional essay and a travelogue of the 2000s.
This book is something of a cross between a diary and a documentary, an autobiography and a chronicle, a confessional essay and a travelogue set in the 2000s. It speaks of the author’s family, friends and reading. It covers his encounters with colleagues such as Tachtsis, Samarakis, Koumantareas and Nikos Nikolaidis. But it also addresses his successes and failures, given that for over thirty years his books have divided even his most devoted readers.
At the same time, he talks about Bournazi, the Metro, the Mall, the OAKA, Big Brother and the smoking ban. About the rise of women and the fall of men, the Internet, ecology, globalisation and patriotism. About the December 2008 riots, terrorism, the unrest in Keratea, Lazopoulos’s party and the Indignant Movement in Syntagma.
In other words, this book speaks of a decade that began as the very definition of success: with the unshakeable conviction that we had become part of Europe, through Greece’s entry into the euro and the 2004 Olympic Games. Only to end, before 2010 had even drawn to a close, with the collapse of that nouveau riche façade and self-delusion, and our plunge into an economic crisis so deep that we are now called upon to learn the fine art of failure.
- Pages: 712
- ISBN: 978-960-9527-54-5
- Publication: 2012
- Dimensions: 20 x 13
- Categories: Literature, eBooks, Greek Literature
"...the feeling one gets when reading _The High Art of Failure_ is rather the illusion of sitting in a café with Raptopoulos, somewhere in the centre of Athens, discussing real and imagined issues, sex and taboos, successes and failures, listening to his memories and becoming the recipient of a kind of personal confession. Seven hundred and two pages is no small matter for a coffee."
– Alexandra Pavlidi, tovivlio.netVangelis Raptopoulos
Vangelis Raptopoulos (Athens, 1959) published his first book at the age of twenty. He has published novels and novellas: ‘The Imperial Memory of Blood’, ‘Lula’, ‘Black Wedding’, ‘The Invention of Reality’, ‘We Lost Dad’, ‘Friends’, ‘The Great Sand’ and others. Collected works: ‘Obsessive Ideas’, ‘My Generation’, ‘Stories of the Lake’. Between chronicle and autobiography: ‘Is Simitis Listening to Mitropanos?’, ‘My America’, ‘A Brief History of Modern Greek Literature’, ‘The High Art of Failure’. As well as translated excerpts from ancient Greek authors. ‘The Cicadas’ was published in English, ‘The Incredible Story of Pope Joan’ in Italian. ‘The Bachelor’ was adapted for the cinema, and ‘The Toll’ for television. In total, more than 250,000 copies of his books have been printed.
