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THERE IS A FOUNTAIN

Name: THERE IS A FOUNTAIN
Author: Dale Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-595-41180-1

VOICES AND STORIES OF AN OLD-TIME SOUTHERN CAMP MEETING

by Dale Wiley ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2007

A serviceable local history of a Southern tradition.

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Personal reflection cum historical study concerning the Fountain camp meeting in Georgia.

Attorney Wiley is to be commended for documenting the story of the Fountain camp meeting, a tradition nearly two centuries old that reaches back to the age of the great Methodist circuit rider Francis Asbury. This is no doubt a meaningful addition to local Georgia history. After a rather jarring introduction in which Wiley discusses his first failed marriage, he then presents brief chapters alternating between personal reflections and the camp’s history. The historical portions–most describe a legal fight over land and control in the late 19th century–are quite interesting and vividly reconstruct events. The inclusion of primary sources as an appendix adds value, as does the author’s analysis of the legal wrangling involved. The personal reflections are generally well-written and engaging, but the brevity of the chapters–most only two or three pages–make the book feel choppy. The reader is invited to experience Fountain’s sights, tastes, smells, etc., through the author’s own senses, but once he begins the story, he abruptly switches back to the 19th century. In fact, until the final two pages, Wiley offers little insight into the religious aspect of the camp meeting. Even the final chapter gives scant evidence that the worship services appeal to his faith. The reader is left with the conclusion that Fountain is largely stripped of its religious importance and is basically like any other camping experience, deriving its spiritual aspects mainly from communion with nature and â€œgetting away from it all.”

A serviceable local history of a Southern tradition.

Pub Date: April 19, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-595-41180-1

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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A MOVEABLE FEAST

by Ernest Hemingway ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 1964

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What we've all been awaiting: the first of Hemingway's posthumous works he began in 1958 and finished in 1960. This is a memoir of his expatriate days in the twenties, and MacLeish's little poem about the young man with the panther good looks who whittled a style for his times in the sawmill attic in Paris comes to life here. What also comes to light is the "inside story," or the very personal revelations, parts of whicy may become a cause scandale. Not only is the Fitzgerald portrait ungenerous, but the disclosures of his sexual difficulties with Zelda are embarrassing. Miss Stein is also victimized, and there are allusions to puzzling perversities. Pound, Ford, Eliot, Lewis and Joyce are around and they are treated with affection, or affectionate malice. The best passages are the descriptive ones— fine writing with all the supple surety of Sun— of bookstalls, cafes, streets, the Seine, race tracks, and travel. And of course there's Hemingway on his wife Hadley, and Hemingway on Hemingway..... Mary McCarthy's famous attack on Salinger scored him for following Papa's special club of OK people (like him) versus the "others" (unlike him). The memoir has something of that snobbery and certain people may go after it accordingly. Still, whatever the indiscretions, it is an important work, a literary source from a master. There can be little doubt of its interest and attraction for many as a reprise of a now legendary time when Hemingway was young and happy and "invulnerable," and a place— well, "There is never any ending to Paris.

Pub Date: May 5, 1964

ISBN: 0684833638

Page Count: 207

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1964

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LETTERS OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY
by Ernest Hemingway & edited by Verna Kale ; Sandra Spanier & Miriam B. Mandel

- BOOK REVIEW
DEAR PAPA
by Ernest Hemingway with Patrick Hemingway ; edited by Brendan Hemingway & Stephen Adams

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SHORT STORIES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY
by Ernest Hemingway ; edited by Seán Hemingway

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THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

by Jordan Belfort ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2007

Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment.

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A cocky bad boy of finance recalls, in much detail and scabrous language, his nasty career as a master of his own universe.

At a young age, in an industry with many precocious bandits, Belfort ran a Long Island–based brokerage with the deceptively WASP-y name of Stratton Oakmont. It was a bucket shop habitually engaged in crooked underwritings. Its persuasive boss was a stock manipulator and tax dodger; he details the stock kiting, share parking, money laundering and customer swindles. Many millions poured in, and cash brought with it excess upon excess. Along with compliant women and copious drugs, there were multiple mansions, many servants, aircraft, yachts and, for all the guys on the trading floor, trophy wives. Among his under-the-table and beneath-the-sheets activities, the author’s most imperative seemed to be sex and dope-taking, despite his professed abiding love for his (now ex) wife and kids. Belfort’s portrait of his family is vivid, as is his depiction of the merry cast of supporting players: sweet Aunt Patricia, a Swiss forger, evil garmentos, Mad Max (Stratton’s CFO and his father). The melodrama covers coke snorting, Quaalude eating, kinky sex, violence, car wrecks, even a sick child and a storm at sea. “A cautionary tale,” the author calls it. It is crass, certainly, and vulgar—and a hell of a read. Belfort displays dirty writing skills many basis points above his tricky ilk. His chronicle ends with his arrest for fraud. Now, with 22 months in the slammer behind him, he’s working on his next book.

Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment.