by Alfred Kazin & edited by Ted Solotaroff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 3, 2003
Despite the inevitable omissions—his warmly democratic tribute to the New York Public Library being the most egregious—an...
Selections from the distinguished late critic’s books and articles highlight his sense of kinship with American writers from Hawthorne to Didion.
Writing as a literary scholar for the general public, Kazin (1915–98) coupled his criticism with three volumes of memoirs to proclaim the personal sustenance a son of immigrants found in American literature, and to assert that it belonged to everyone. Excerpts from A Walker in the City (1951), Starting Out in the Thirties (1962), and the bluntly titled New York Jew (1978) paint vivid, bracingly unsentimental portraits of Brooklyn in the 1930s; of such peers in “the literary life” as Mary McCarthy, Philip Rahv, and Saul Bellow; of elder statesmen like Lionel Trilling and Edmund Wilson (the latter one of Kazin’s best character/cultural sketches). Pieces drawn from On Native Grounds (1942) remind us of Kazin’s pioneering work in tracing the flowering of realism in American literature from William Dean Howells in the 1890s through Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson to Lost Generation icons Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Only Edith Wharton seems to evade his complete understanding, but he does better with contemporary female authors like Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates in a section also notable for sharp essays on Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy; Cheever, Salinger, and Updike; Bellow, Malamud, and Roth. WASPS, Jews, or southerners, they were all Americans first and foremost to Kazin: few critics have more penetratingly limned the “belief in the ideal freedom and power of the self, in the political and social visions of radical democracy” that informs our national literature. “Departed Friends” examines those same overriding themes in the 19th-century titans, including Thoreau, Melville, Dickinson, and Twain. Editor Solotaroff’s introduction sets Kazin’s life in historical context, an important service for a critic who always insisted on the intimate, intricate links between literature and society.
Despite the inevitable omissions—his warmly democratic tribute to the New York Public Library being the most egregious—an enthralling introduction to the work of a man who “lived to read” and conveyed that passion to his own readers for half a century.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-621343-6
Page Count: 592
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
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by Alfred Kazin
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by Alfred Kazin
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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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis
by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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