by Dwight Macdonald & edited by Michael Wreszin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2001
A terrific collection that maps one of the last century’s most fascinating minds. (8 b&w photos and 2 illustrations,...
Macdonald biographer Wreszin (A Rebel in Defense of Tradition, 1994, not reviewed) presents riveting samples of the correspondence of the late critic, social commentator, and essayist.
Macdonald (1906–82) was the antithesis to the current barmy notion that people ought to be consistent. And there is no better evidence of his animated, inquiring, evolving intelligence than these letters that span 60 years. The young man who admired Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation in 1926 (for the comeuppance it showed being delivered to the “cocky, insolent niggers”) was replaced by the crusty old liberal warhorse who, in 1967, wrote what was basically a fan letter to Martin Luther King. Macdonald worked for Henry Luce at Time, and at Luce’s new publication Fortune. After a stint at Partisan Review (and an extended affair with communism), he founded his own short-lived journal (Politics), and many of his most compelling (and outrageous) letters came from this period. “I can work up a moral indignation quicker than a fat tennis player can work up a sweat,” he wrote to a friend in 1929. Macdonald was a fierce critic (of books and films), and many of his letters smoke with acidic comments about books and writers. He told Mary McCarthy that he found Dos Passos “fattish and complacent” at a dinner in 1946 and called The Age of Innocence “a very good second-rate novel.” Macdonald’s professional ethics are everywhere on display (he refused, for example, to publish with Henry Regnery because of that publisher’s support for Joseph McCarthy), and his love letters are as touching as they are troubling (many are to lovers rather than his wife). Unfortunately, there is no statement of editorial principles (so we don’t know if ellipses, for example, are Macdonald’s or Wreszin’s), and for some reason Wreszin does not identify Macdonald’s place of writing, leaving us to infer it from context—often impossible to do.
A terrific collection that maps one of the last century’s most fascinating minds. (8 b&w photos and 2 illustrations, some not seen)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2001
ISBN: 1-56663-393-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Ivan Dee/Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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
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