{"title":"Books by Lee Siegel","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780300271072","title":"Why Argument Matters","description":"Hailed by the New York Times as a book that “examines the role that argument has played throughout history and how it has shaped human existence”  “An invigorating reflection on the nature and value of disagreement. . . . Sharp and taut. . . . A lesson in a well-constructed argument itself.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review  “Perhaps more than any other commentary, Why Argument Matters illuminates the root causes of our partisan, venomous, irrational times—and yet somehow rescues from the morass the true nature of argument, its power and beauty.”—Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House   From Eve’s crafty exchange with the serpent, to Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring, subtle ultimatums, to the throes of Twitter—argument’s drainpipe—the human desire to prevail with words has been not just a moral but an existential compulsion. In this dazzling reformulation of argument, renowned critic Lee Siegel portrays the true art of argument as much deeper and far more embracing than mere quarrel, dispute, or debate. It is the supreme expression of humanity’s longing for a better life, born of empathy and of care for the world and those who inhabit it.      With wit, passion, and striking insights, Siegel plumbs the emotional and psychological sources of clashing words, weaving through his exploration the untold story of the role argument has played in societies throughout history. Each life, he maintains, is an argument for that particular way of living; every individual style of argument is also a case that is being made for that person’s right to argue. Argument is at the heart of the human experience, and language, at its most liberated and expressive, inexorably bends toward argument.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56232613151093,"sku":"9780300271072","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300271072_31b8ffd5-dc40-4ec8-8ba5-52ec9de0d2b2.jpg?v=1786012716"},{"product_id":"city-of-dreadful-night-a-tale-of-horror-and-the-macabre-in-india","title":"City of Dreadful Night – A Tale of Horror and the Macabre in India","description":"When Lee Siegel went to India to do research for a book on Sanskrit horror literature, a friend in New Delhi told him about an itinerant teller of ghost and vampire tales, a man with clusters of amulets around his neck and a silk top hat with peacock plumes on his head. Siegel set out in search of the old man—called Brahm Kathuwala—to hear his stories and to learn about his uncommon life. But what started out as a study of other people's stories became a compelling story itself. City of Dreadful Night is an astonishing work of fiction, a tangle of tales that transports the reader from the Medieval India of magicians, witches, and vampires, through the British India of Brahm Kathuwala's childhood, into the chaos and political terror of contemporary India. Vividly recreating Indian literary and oral traditions, Siegel weaves a web of possession, reincarnation, and magical transformation unlike any found in the Western tradition. Flesh-eating demons, Rajiv Gandhi's assassin, even Bram Stoker and Dracula populate the serpentine narrative, which intermingles stories about the characters with the terrifying tales they tell.   Siegel pursues Brahm Kathuwala from the ghastly lights of the cremation ground at Banaras through villages all over north India. Brahm's life story is revealed through countless tales along the way. We learn that he was raised, and abandoned, by two mothers—one the destitute floor sweeper who bore him; the other her employer, a wealthy Irish woman who read and reread to him the story of Dracula. We hear of his marriage to the daughter of a cremation ground attendant, his battles against her demonic possession, and their painful parting. We come to understand the daily life and motivations of this \"horror professional,\" who uses terrifying tales to ward off the evil he himself fears.   This unorthodox book is more than a story; it blends scholarship, fantasy, travelogue, and autobiography—fusing and overlapping historical accounts and newscasts, literary texts and films, dreams and nocturnal tales. Siegel uses imagination to explore the relation of real terror to horror fiction and to contemplate the ways fear and disgust become thrilling elements in stories of the macabre. This book is the product of Siegel's deep knowledge of both Indian and Western literary and philosophical traditions. It is also an attempt to come to grips with the omnipresence of political and religious terror in contemporary India. Shocking, original, beautifully written, City of Dreadful Night offers readers a captivating immersion in the wonder and terror of India, past and present.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466612220277,"sku":"9780226756882","price":80.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"love-in-a-dead-language","title":"Love in a Dead Language","description":"Love in a Dead Language is a love story, a translation of an Indian sex manual, an erotic farce, and a murder mystery. The hero of this protean comedy, Leopold Roth, complains, \"I am a tenured full professor of Indian studies and a Sanskrit scholar, and yet never, never in my life, have I made love to an Indian woman.\" Imagining that such an intimacy would provide a deeper and truer understanding of what he has spent his academic life mastering, a happily married Roth becomes obsessed with Lalita Gupta, nubile student and avatar of his fantasies of a sexually idyllic ancient realm. Although this California-born Indian girl has no interest in India, the past, or him, Roth sets out to seduce her and, at the same time, to teach her who she is in terms of the history of Indian culture. To that end he begins to translate the Kamasutra for her, interspersing that translation with a confessional commentary. By inventing a bogus summer study abroad program, the professor is able to abduct Lalita to the land of her ancestors. After an emotionally tumultuous summer, Roth returns home only to be suspended from teaching, left by his wife, and beaten to death with a Sanskrit dictionary.   Roth's murder leaves the completion of his translation to graduate student Anang Saighal. The voices of Saighal, Roth, Professor Lee Siegel, Vatsyayana, author of the Kamasutra, with a chorus of other victims and celebrants of sexual desire, constitute an outrageous operatic portrayal of romantic love. Love in a Dead Language exposes the complicities between the carnal and the intellectual, the erotic and the exotic, the false and the true. It is as raunchy as it is erudite, as hilarious as it is poignant, and as entertaining as it is profound.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57695184617845,"sku":"9780226756974","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226756974.jpg?v=1793031771"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-lee-siegel.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}