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A CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Name: A CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
Author: Irving Howe
ISBN: 0-15-119949-3

by Irving Howe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1994

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Working on a miniaturized scale, Howe (The American Newness, 1986, etc.) masterfully surveys the literary field in this posthumous collection of essays. The author planned to amass a book from what he called shtiklakh (Yiddish for ``morsels'') of old-fashioned literary criticism on a variety of subjects; he completed enough of them for his son to arrange in this volume. Fittingly, some of the best pieces briefly explore minute topics: the anecdote, ``gratuitous details,'' the fly in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The longer, thematic essays range with natural confidence from such traditional aesthetic issues as characterization in Fielding and Sterne to curiosities like the uses of obscurity from Moll Flanders to The Good Soldier, but these disquisitions all contain the same pleasantly modest inquisitiveness. While some approach literary giants such as Dickens and George Eliot with reflective familiarity, others boost novelists with reputations in decline, including Arnold Bennett and Sir Walter Scott, from the perspective of a veteran reader aware of their shortcomings but entertained nonetheless. As much selected shorts of literary appreciation as they are criticism, the pieces have a distinctly personal flavor, whether discussing changes in reading mores or the fading pleasure experienced in rereading books one once enjoyed. Howe occasionally airs his irritation with current academic political fashions and theory but never raises his conversational tone. Sometimes his personal fondnesses crowd out his scholarly nature, most egregiously in his examination of late Dickens through the lens of Dostoevsky, both favorites of his; the Victorian's literary and personal dark side is badly misrepresented by the comparison. Still, the obvious pleasure Howe takes in his literary rambles makes the reader wish he had been able to write as planned on Great Expectations and on picnics in the works of Jane Austen and E.M. Forster. A delightful potpourri in which Howe displays an essayist's ease, a critic's incisiveness, and, when necessary, an academic's scholarship.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-15-119949-3

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
A VOICE STILL HEARD
by Irving Howe ; edited by Nina Howe

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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.