Good fun—and an inspiration for readers to return to Shakespeare on their own.
An enjoyable memoir of late-life crisis, spiritual awakening, close reading, and all sorts of matters Shakespearean.
This is, at heart, a fan’s notes on rereading the works of William Shakespeare, an unpretentious rejoinder to David Denby’s Great Books (1996) and the collected essays of Sven Birkerts. Before getting to the Bard, though, Gollob gives us an extended background tour of the book-publishing business in its glory days, with a little well-deserved horn-tooting; after all, he edited Wright Morris, Donald Barthelme, and James Clavell and worked in some of the best literary houses in the land. Leaving publishing in 1995 just in advance of burnout (“why was I being asked to consider yet another lame and halt manuscript that would have been better served had it been placed into the hands of a faith healer?”), Gollob chanced to see a performance of Hamlet featuring the British actor Ralph Fiennes, enough to send him on a mind-altering romp through the collected works of Shakespeare, bringing all his life experiences to bear on plays and poems that he thought he knew, but of which, as he puts it, he really had only “a smattering of ignorance.” The result is a true pleasure: bookish without being academic, smart without being smart-alecky, always with an eye on the original work and not on its interpreter’s cleverness. Gollob’s tone is that of an ardent convert addressing an audience of graybeards (the narrative has its origins in an Elderhostel course Gollob teaches at Caldwell College in New Jersey), a friendly companion urging the reader to share his passion for the Bard, with just a couple of crabby moments. (He hates the film Shakespeare in Love, for one, and isn’t afraid to say so.) Throughout, the author offers some refreshing takes on a writer who has been much studied but perhaps little understood; his reading of King Lear as a Jewish text is a knockout, and entirely convincing.
Good fun—and an inspiration for readers to return to Shakespeare on their own.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-49817-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
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
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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