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LATER AUDEN

Name: LATER AUDEN
Author: Edward Mendelson
ISBN: 0-374-18408-9

THE DEFINITIVE STUDY OF AUDEN'S POEMS FROM 1939 TO 1979

by Edward Mendelson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999

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The richly detailed follow-up to Early Auden (not reviewed), Mendelson’s well-received study of the poet’s most notable period. With unparalleled access as executor of Auden’s literary estate, Mendelson (English and Comparative Literature/Columbia) blazes a scholarly trail ending in Auden’s “private spheres” as an expatriate poet and lecturer after the “public chaos” of WWII, which was preceded by his formative, more eventful experiences of the 1930s. Here he takes Auden at his word when he wrote “anything of importance that happens to one is immediately incorporated, however obscurely, into a poem”, and nothing, however obscure, escapes Mendelson. While the poetry that made Auden famous was created in Britain, this later period includes major, rich works such as The Age of Anxiety, the tour de force The Sea and the Mirror, and the anthology favorites The Shield of Achilles and “In Praise of Limestone”—all of which Mendelson exhaustively unpacks, making good use of drafts, correspondence, and Auden’s own literary criticism. With these and much of Auden’s prolific output, he elucidates both their relation to the poet’s personal life, which was dominated by his rise-and-fall affair with Chester Kallman, and his personal mythology, with its high-church Christianity and Jungian inclinations. While Mendelson ably keeps up with Auden’s restless intellectual existence, which absorbed Kierkegaard and Tillich, among others, he underplays his early legacy, especially the influences of Freud and Marx, whom Auden could not fully expel from his creative pantheon. Just as Mendelson assisted Humphrey Carpenter with researching his masterly biography of Auden in 1981, here he provides an invaluable academic trove. Not a critical study so much as a biography of Auden’s poetry itself that is comprehensive in situating the work in the life.

Pub Date: April 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-374-18408-9

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.