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FRANZ KAFKA: REPRESENTATIVE MAN

Name: FRANZ KAFKA: REPRESENTATIVE MAN
Author: Frederick R. Karl
ISBN: 0-395-56143-4

PRAGUE, GERMANS, JEWS, AND THE CRISIS OF MODERNISM

by Frederick R. Karl ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1991

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Immense critical biography that makes Kafka the ``representative man'' of the 20th century and places him at the center of High Modernism in Prague. Karl (William Faulkner: American Writer, 1989, etc.; English & American Literature/NYU) draws on a relentless tide of fact and historical reasoning to separate out Kafka's many variations on himself: as obsessive writer, episodic depressive, diarist, insurance agent, letter writer, family member, disease victim, lifelong hypochondriac, frequenter of gentile Czech prostitutes, and man who belonged to a despised German-speaking minority within a Jewish minority and felt he had no native tongue with which to speak his deepest feelings. But each time Karl quotes Kafka, the writer springs alive on the page and struggles against the biography hardening around his ankles. Is this nervous, evasive phantom at last to be set before us plain, his every private thought caught naked? Working in Karl's favor, once one accepts his unsmiling seriousness, is Kafka himself, a spellbinding creature. Working against Karl is his tie to the reader, who hopes for the comfortable familiarity of Brian Boyd on Nabokov or the artistry and fervor of Richard Ellmann on Joyce—but must settle for a faceless and not very graceful biographer intent on his cultural perspectives and on proving something many readers may not care about anyway. All this said, this is a generally gripping and edifying book. Fresh material comes from works in German unavailable to English-language readers, from what Karl ``discovered in Prague about Kafka's cultural activities,'' and from a newly unearthed batch of 32 letters Kafka wrote to his parents near the end of his life. Karl is as rich with ideas and as fearless at entering Kafka's world as was Kafka himself. Despite its flaws, then, an important biography and likely to become a standard critical biography of K. (Thirty-two page b&w photo insert—not seen.)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1991

ISBN: 0-395-56143-4

Page Count: 768

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991

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.