A dauntingly thorough, vast chronicle of the life and hard times of one of America's preeminent literary humorists. Thurber (18941961) was a rare double-threat talent. Not only did he write some of the funniest and most pellucid prose this side of Mark Twain, he was also a formidable cartoonist/caricaturist, his fluid, essential style attracting admirers as diverse as Matisse and Paul Nash. One of the New Yorker's first staffers, he dominated the magazine for years, writing and illustrating large swaths of it to growing acclaim until his sight began to fail. Eventually he had to give up drawing entirely and dictate his stories and voluminous correspondence. As with many satirists, his early, gentle humor (parodies, wordplay, lampoons of the ``war'' between men and women) turned darker and more bilious as he got older. He became a mean, obstreperous drunk, given to increasingly misogynistic outbursts—a gross inversion of the meek, harried Walter Mitty characters he was so famous for. But unlike many humorists, he has stood the test of time remarkably well, his work witty and elegantly concise. The same cannot be said for Kinney's biography. More than 30 years in the making, it is a labor of too much love. Kinney, a former reporter for the New Yorker, sucks every fact, event, and analysis dry. Even in these unhappy times when bloated biographies rule the earth, 1,200 pages on Thurber is simply grotesque. Kinney has done some formidable original resource work, interviewing most of Thurber's acquaintances, and his judgments on Thurber and his work are exquisitely perceptive. But at half the length, this biography would have been twice as penetrating and so much better suited to its subject. Definitive, but much too much of a good thing. (32 pages illustrations)
Pub Date: Nov. 23, 1995
ISBN: 0-8050-3966-X
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
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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