A pointed guide to growing up that will be funny to those who have accomplished it (more or less), as well as those who have...
Even the friskiest satirists of Gen X seem to have realized that they too are subject to aging, the raw material for every comic writer’s stock in trade. Here, journeyman humorist, campus lecturer, and radio commentator Zevin takes his turn at trying on an ill-fitting mask of maturity.
Acting grown up, Zevin (Entry-Level Life, not reviewed) has a wife, a dog, and long pants. Indeed, pants serve as the dominant theme in these antic essays. Sweat pants, corduroys, Levis, relaxed-fit jeans, and diverse trousers du jour are dropped, so to speak, at various opportunities in the text. And why not? Plural at one end and singular at the other, pants are admittedly funny. Zevin’s diverting humor flows easily, from his efforts to prepare interesting material to present in sessions with his shrink to his plans to acquire a Roth IRA like all the other grown-ups . . . as soon as he figures out what a Roth IRA is. Like the other big kids, he tries his hand at golf, sailing on the Charles River, and even teaching. He attends a kiddy etiquette class. (Happily, it doesn’t moderate his language, which remains boisterous Gen-X palaver.) He chronicles his coming of age in a series of confessions: his fondness for a home appliance, attendance at a wine-tasting, and similar nasty revelations. He’s a coffee hound. He owns a Zagat Survey. He’s learned not to eat a microwaved burrito before exercise class. He even considers (in a monologue that sounds like a demented version of “Soliloquy” from Carousel) how it might be to be a father. He claims, as “a professional shut-in, or ‘self-employed person’ ” to be “exempt from all dress codes.” But that only brings us back to pants.
A pointed guide to growing up that will be funny to those who have accomplished it (more or less), as well as those who have yet to attempt it.Pub Date: June 18, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-50706-X
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
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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