Having retired from theory-dominated academia in 1987, British novelist and critic Lodge (Therapy, 1995, etc.) reflects on the practice and practicalities of writing for a living in this engaging essay collection. Lodge has written ten novels, five works of criticism (The Novelist at the Crossroads, not reviewed, etc.), a play (The Writing Game), and a considerable body of essays and reviews. The book's first section includes pieces on some broad issues in writing (``Fact and Fiction in the Novel'') and deft, precise readings of modern writers, including essays on D.H. Lawrence, Henry Green, and Vladimir Nabokov, among others. Lodge delivers an excellent introduction to Kingsley Amis's novel Lucky Jim, vigorously demonstrating why the book deserves to be remembered and reread. And as a Catholic, he sympathetically and informatively reviews discordant biographies of Graham Greene. There's a pleasant frankness and freshness about these pieces, as if Lodge, freed from the constraints of the university, can speak freely in a less formal voice. The pieces in the book's second section focus on Lodge's adventures in other media, including his work on a screenplay adaptation of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, and another based on his own novel Nice Work (1989). When laboring over Dickens, Lodge actually finds himself trading traditional places with his director, as he argues for a dramatic reworking of the story over any lengthy fidelity to the text. He also includes excerpts from his diary having to do with the production of The Writing Game; they display Lodge's easygoing adaptability and persistent fascination with the theater, despite difficulties with casting, rehearsals, and reviews. Lodge sums up this theatrical departure from his campus novels as ``the most intensely interesting experience of my literary career to date.'' Neither wholly journalism nor academic theorizing, The Practice of Writing offers the best of both worlds.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-713-99173-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1996
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
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