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Beskrivning
Titel: Mr. Arkadin
Författare: Orson Welles
Förlag: Pyramid Books
Utgivningsår: 1958
Språk:Engelska
Bandtyp: Pocketbok
Skick: Hyggligt skick – nötta rygg och hörn, pärmarna är fläckade på insidan, gulnad inlaga.
Set in the seedy underworld of postwar Europe, Orson Welles’ novel focuses on the sinister figure of Gregory Arkadin, a fabulously wealthy and influential financier who enlists the services of a small-time smuggler and rackateer, Van Stratten, for an extraordinary assignment. Arkadin claims that he can remember nothing of his life prior to the moment in 1927 when he found himself alone in Zurich with 200,000 Swiss francs in his pocket – a sum with which he subsequently built his vast fortune – and Van Stratten’s task is to investigate Arkadin’s mysterious past and prepare him a confidential report on it.
Welles wrote, directed, and starred in the film version of Mr. Arkadin, which was released under the title Confidential Report in 1955, but believed that only the novel remained the definitive expression of his intentions. A haunting exploration of typically Wellesian themes, it is an enduring example of his unique genius.
Novel about a mysterious international financier who pays a handsome young playboy to uncover his hidden past, which reveals ”a sordid path of women, high finance and corruption.” A fairly straightforward adaptation of Welles’s 1955 film of the same name, first published in French in 1954 and in English in 1956. It seems to be generally accepted (and was more or less acknowledged by Welles himself) that the novel was actually written by Maurice Bessy (credited only as translator on the original French edition, but unmentioned in this printing). In any case, it’s an interesting companion piece to the film, which critic David Thomson described as ”a bad film such as only a great and self-consciously wayward artist could make.” .