A meticulously detailed analysis.
An iconic novelist’s religious heritage.
Literary scholar Compagnon offers an authoritative examination of the reception of Proust (1871-1922) by the French Jewish community following the author’s death. Because Proust’s mother came from a family of assimilated Jews, many critics were inspired to ask about the author’s sense of religious or cultural identity. “Am I not more Jewish than European?” That is the question, Compagnon asserts, posed to Proust retrospectively by a host of erudite readers, spurred by an obituary of Proust written by Zionist André Spire in 1923. In the decades that followed, “some responded for him in a decidedly positive way, emphasizing his Jewish heredity, even his rabbinical style,” Compagnon has found, “while others proved more prudent, and even more reticent.” Mining an extensive bibliography, Compagnon offers detailed readings of articles and books by more than a dozen prominent critics, focusing especially on the 1920s, when Proust was discussed in the pages of Zionist journals by critics known as the “French Israelites,” and continuing into the 1930s. Critics in the 1920s often compared Proust to Montaigne and Henri Bergson—both of Jewish ancestry—noting stylistic evidence of Proust’s “maternal heritage” in his “Talmudic sentences” and his representation of Jewish characters “who could not be reduced to conventional types.” In the second half of the 1930s, however, a “noticeable change” occurred, spurred by Siegfried van Praag, an influential critic who proposed “anti-Semitism as the explanation for certain character traits that Proust gives his creations.” Taken up by Hannah Arendt, in her Origins of Totalitarianism,” this view created “long-lasting repercussions” in the debate over Proust’s connection to Judaism. It is a view, bolstered by close reading and biographical discoveries, that Compagnon persuasively challenges.
A meticulously detailed analysis.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780231211352
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
