by Cynthia Ozick ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2006
Erudition lightly worn, eloquence finely crafted.
A veteran novelist (Heir to the Glimmering World, 2004, etc.) and essayist (Quarrel and Quandary: Essays, 2000, etc.) expatiates on the lives and works of literary figures as diverse as Helen Keller and Isaac Babel, Sylvia Plath and Azar Nafisi.
In these rich and varied essays, Ozick displays not only the wide range of her reading but also the impressive capaciousness of her imagination. The title essay is a brief, eloquent plea for the novel (threatened by movies and memoirs), which Ozick claims is “the last trustworthy vessel of the inner life.” A prominent presence throughout is Henry James (Ozick says she kept The Ambassadors on her desk while she wrote her own first novel, Trust), no more so than in the final essay, an ironic “interview” in which James endures and counters questions about his sexuality from a 21st-century interviewer. Another of Ozick’s interests is the conflict between high and low culture. In “Highbrow Blues,” she recalls the Franzen-Oprah contretemps and comments with some sadness that Philip Roth’s Shop Talk (2001), which in more literary times might have made a splash, instead caused barely a ripple. Ozick greatly admires Roth and Bellow but has little use for Mailer, whose work she dismisses in a couple of places. In the rare Sylvia Plath item with nary a mention of Ted Hughes (a review of Plath’s The Unabridged Journals, 2000), she quips, “She was both Emily Dickinson and Betty Crocker.” But it’s a long, reflective and personal piece about Lionel Trilling that is the book’s payoff.
Erudition lightly worn, eloquence finely crafted.Pub Date: June 2, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-47050-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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