In the poem, Dante finds Love; in Rubin, a grateful lover.
A pleasant, informative journey toward perfect love with Dante (and Virgil and Beatrice) through Italy, France, hell, purgatory, and heaven.
Rubin, who has ventured previously into Italian history (The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women, 1997, etc.), this time moves into the Middle Ages and offers an almost ecstatic exegesis of The Divine Comedy, with breezy commentary on all three of its canticles. The author has a lot on her plate: she follows Dante around Italy (and into France and back again) as he is composing the poem; she sketches the cultural and religious history of the age; she explains both the structure and the significance of the Comedy; she shows how it has influenced other writers and how it resonates in contemporary life. And so throughout the text we find allusions to great Dante scholars and teachers (e.g., John Freccero at NYU), samples of translations from Ciardi, Mandelbaum, Pinsky, Merwin, Wicksteed, and even a quick taste of the Binyon-Pound collaboration. Rubin sprinkles her text as well with references to Harry Potter and Pudd’n’head Wilson, Freud and Fellini, People magazine and Matthew Pearl (and Longfellow!), Keats and Eliot, Joyce and Titian, Nijinsky and Jung. She includes details we won’t forget (Tuscan paper comprised old underwear, animal parts, hemp), a few hackneyed images (a butterfly emerging from a cocoon), and some anecdotes that aren’t quite accurate (the story of Shelley’s drowning and cremation and of Trelawny’s snatching from the fire the poet’s unconsumed heart). Still, there are some eye-openers here for general readers and those unfamiliar with the poem. Rubin’s summary of the theory that Dante’s views of Gothic cathedrals in France inspired the architecture of the Comedy, her emphasis on the importance of memory in medieval societies, her unfettered enthusiasm for the poem—these are real attractions. As, for the most part, is her felicitous prose.
In the poem, Dante finds Love; in Rubin, a grateful lover.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-3446-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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