A well-crafted, wistful memoir of life in higher education.
Hirsch (The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter, 2014 etc.) discusses his long career in the shifting culture of academia in this debut memoir.
Born gay into a Jewish family in Chicago in 1952 and shaped forever by the assassinations and tumult of 1968, Hirsch was set irreversibly on a career of studying political science. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the early 1970s, he found himself molded by Marx, Shakespeare, and Richard Nixon. At Princeton in the mid-’70s, he considered abandoning academia for New York, though he now thinks his decision to stay saved him from an uncertain fate in the subsequent AIDS epidemic. At Harvard in the late ’70s, he received a job offer before he even finished his dissertation. His subsequent career would take him to colleges in California, Minnesota, and Ohio. Through his decades as a specialist in constitutional law, Hirsch noted the changing face of American politics as well as academia. In his view, the government has increasingly forsaken its obligation to students, while universities have metamorphosed into unaffordable and irresponsible institutions predicated on the undercompensated work of adjuncts. Additionally, Hirsch charts his own evolution as a man and educator, aging against the ever youthful and regenerative backdrop of incoming classes of students, attempting to maintain perspective in a mutable world. The author’s writing style bears all the marks of a seasoned lecturer: it is digressive, idiosyncratic, and lived-in. The book, divided into chapters with names like “Politics 101” and “Drama: Advanced Seminar,” allows Hirsch to take a topical approach to his life. His fluid prose varies to fit the subject at hand. A chapter centered on geography becomes a Whitmanesque litany of places out of order: “Rivers. The Charles. The Seine. Oceans and beaches. Ogunquit, Maine. Herring Cove, Provincetown. Coronado in San Diego, reading thick library books while tanned, perfect bodies played volleyball around me.” Subjective and impressionistic, the work meanders and becomes occasionally dry. Even so, the author’s voice is so cozy and sincere that the reader happily follows him through his recollections, wherever they may lead.
A well-crafted, wistful memoir of life in higher education.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61027-338-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quid Pro
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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