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DREAMING BY THE BOOK

Name: DREAMING BY THE BOOK
Author: Elaine Scarry
ISBN: 0-374-14398-6

by Elaine Scarry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1999

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Grab your crystals and prepare for the literary critical incarnation of a John Tesh concert. This is a New Age journey into dreamworld parading as literary criticism, inviting the reader to participate in visualizing exercises in order to understand the relationship between literature and the imagination. Any book which attempts to uncover continuities within thousands of years of literature should either be brilliant (e.g., Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis) or unwritten; this offering belongs in the latter category. Scarry (English and American Literature/Harvard) argues both that writers use their imaginations to create and that readers use their imaginations to visualize the depicted worlds of fiction; this twin proposal hardly makes a stunning thesis. Analyzing the creative process in terms of five variations” radiant ignition, rarity, dyadic addition and subtraction, stretching, and floral supposition—Scarry delineates the methods authors employ to bring their works to life, to create a vivid and vibrant picture in the reader’s mind. Alas, the ultimate in stultifying pedantry results when Scarry directs the reader in the visualizing process, guiding her readers, for example, through a passage of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles with instructions interspersed on how we are to visualize what Hardy depicts. Not to depreciate the value of creative visualization, but we hardly need Scarry to point out to us the fact that authors use their imagination in the process of writing and spur ours as we read. The book ends with Scarry’s very own depiction of a bird flying; putting the power of fantasy to work, she shows the reader that, yes, in our imaginations, birds really can fly. If you are looking for a journey into the creative process, you would do better to write, draw, or sing for yourself than to enter Scarry’s literary-visual world.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-374-14398-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
NAMING THY NAME
by Elaine Scarry

- BOOK REVIEW
THERMONUCLEAR MONARCHY
by Elaine Scarry

- BOOK REVIEW
ON BEAUTY AND BEING JUST
by Elaine Scarry

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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.