Miller comes across as an engaging and honest interlocutor, and many readers will surely enjoy his wit and intellect. Even...
A volume of essays, 1994–99, by one of America’s most prominent American playwrights—an engaged intellectual and public figure who has remained abreast of the major political, social, and cultural events for over half of the last century.
Miller’s style varies from lyrical prose (when he recollects his childhood spent in Brooklyn or confesses his admiration for the engineering wonder of the Brooklyn Bridge) to analytical commentary (on McCarthyism or the Frankfurt Nazi trial). The accounts of his Italian misadventures (when he was “kidnapped” by a well-meaning fan and courted by a powerful Sicilian Mafia baron) are full of humorous observations and genuine irony. But when he turns to the murky years of Turkish military rule and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Miller becomes a serious and ardent political advocate. The story of his philosophical debate with a diehard American Communist in China is at once an insightful study of human nature and an exposition of the author’s strongest convictions. Understandably, however, theater remains Miller’s primary theme throughout the years, as he comments on various productions of his own plays around the globe and reviews the works of his peers. And his political and theatrical inclinations are both illustrated in his call (first raised in the 1950s) to do away with the American playwright’s “homelessness” through the establishment of government subsidies for the theater—a call that remains unanswered.
Miller comes across as an engaging and honest interlocutor, and many readers will surely enjoy his wit and intellect. Even if some of his opinions rub the wrong way, the logic behind his arguments and the sheer breadth of his knowledge will nevertheless be appreciated.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-670-89314-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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