These 17 essays, all but two previously presented, display that urbane and personable voice, the supple and ranging intellect that has marked Donoghue's (English/NYU) twenty-some books on literature and literary theory and his frequent and insightful reviews in the NYRB. Modernism as a literary style, Donoghue establishes in ``The Man in the Crowd,'' required an urban culture, the individual creative mind confronting the anonymous ``other,'' the dread it provokes, the validation of individual feeling, and the internalization of images and events. He explores the subtleties, distinctions, and controversies of modernism in the essays that follow, from ``Beyond Culture'' and ``The Political Turn in Criticism'' as well as studies of individual authors: James, Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, and Stevens. The literature, Donoghue emphasizes, is more important than the criticism, and he laments the breakdown of the relationship between them, the substitution of contexts, themes, and theories for aesthetic and fictive truth in literary studies. ``Criticism's recourse to psychology, politics, anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics is rarely seen for the desperate device it is,'' he observes in his appreciative reading of R.P. Blackmur, concluding that such diversions leave most literature ``in every sense of the word that matters, unread.'' Donoghue is a master stylist. With subjects ranging from Henry James to Derrida, his essays capture a tone of informed conversation, with tactical quotes, rich allusions, and strategic questions (``What, then, does it mean?'')—and without the fragmentation, jargon, and obfuscation of contemporary literary discussion.
Pub Date: March 22, 1994
ISBN: 0-394-58934-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
