An insightful, thought-provoking blend of drama and critical theory.
Wong collects plays and essays that argue for the centrality of risk in drama.
Wong argues that risk serves as the fulcrum of tragedy. Characters gamble something, exposing themselves to catastrophe via unlikely but potentially ruinous events, as when Macbeth and his wife decide to kill the king or when Oedipus fails to heed Tiresias’ advice to abandon his search for his father’s murderer. Wong illustrates his theory with three examples of contemporary plays that emphasize risk as the engine of their plot. In Bloom by Gabriel Jason Dean tells the story of an American documentarian who stumbles upon the bacha bazi, or dancing boy, culture while working in Afghanistan. The Value by Nicholas Dunn follows three petty thieves who have just stolen a valuable piece of art and must now come to terms with its real worth. Children of Combs and Watch Chains by Emily McClain involves a husband and wife who, unable to conceive a child, each embark on a secretive “Gift of the Magi”–style plot to make the other a parent, putting their life together in serious jeopardy. Following the plays are six essays by Wong in which he further explores the ways risk functions in ancient Greek tragedies as well as works by Shakespeare and Arthur Miller. Wong extends his risk reading to the realm of the novel, using Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd as his primary example. Wong’s prose is clean and easy to follow even as he wades into textual analysis. He writes that Macbeth “is transformed by a series of low-probability, high-consequence events, in the beginning raised up by chance, and, in the end, cast down by the same power he hoped to harness. Macbeth is the story of how low-probability, high-consequence events encouraged a man to wager all-in.” The three plays are enjoyable in their own rights, particularly McClain’s gripping Children of Combs and Watch Chains, which manages to feel simultaneously classic and fresh. As a whole, the book is both a persuasive argument for Wong’s theory of tragedy and an impressive package in service of his preferred approach to literary criticism.
An insightful, thought-provoking blend of drama and critical theory.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-913510-9
Page Count: 420
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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