An irrepressibly lively collection of the late Italian novelist’s literary criticism. Between the 1950s and his death in 1985, Calvino (Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday, 1997, etc.) published many occasional pieces on classic works and authors. Most of these, which appeared in newspapers or as prefaces and speeches, are only a few pages long. In 1991 his wife assembled a collection of these writings that is fuller than those included in the two compilations published during his lifetime. Consequently, 11 of the 36 essays here have already been published in English. The duplication matters little: Calvino is such a congenial guide to his personal canon of great works that one is grateful to have all the essays together. The opening piece, from which the title of the book is drawn, democratically meditates on the importance of classics, which are books that “imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable.” So Robert Louis Stevenson has as much claim to the category as Voltaire or Henry James. Eclectic in taste and interest, Calvino ranges widely from the ancient world (Homer, Xenophon, Ovid, Pliny) to early modern (Galileo, Cardano, Ariosto) to modern (Voltaire, Diderot, and on to Queneau and Borges). What interests him most, though, is narrative fiction from Robinson Crusoe to the present. The continental heavyweights are represented in force (Stendhal, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Balzac), but Anglo-American fiction seems to hold a special appeal for him. He offers essays on Defoe, Twain, James, Stevenson, Dickens, Conrad, and Hemingway. Of course not every important writer can be included in such a work, and certain writers are strikingly absent: Kafka, Shakespeare, Joyce, and Proust, to name just a few. Calvino never set about to write an inclusive work. Still, given his importance in contemporary letters and given the posthumous character of the book, this collection would have benefited from a good afterword on the writer as critic and his tastes. It would have been interesting to know what he didn’t like and why. Brisk and unpretentiously sophisticated, Calvino’s literary essays are invigorating, thought-provoking, and pleasurable reading.
Pub Date: Sept. 22, 1999
ISBN: 0-679-41524-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
Shimmering dispatches from the far, far reaches of the geographical imagination, from the captivating, highly polished hand of Thubron (Turning Back the Sun, 1992, etc.). To say that central Asia is a place rich in history and legend is to put it mildly: land of the rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, of Samarkand and Tashkent, of Alexander, Tamerlane, and the great Khans...Kafiristan! Thubron drops in to measure its doings since the Great Fall of '91. He discovers a moody and unsettled place. From the endless cotton fields of the central plateau to the shepherds of the high Pamirs, all is in flux. Some towns are raucous with a sense of freedom and possibility; others just can't get their wheels turning, stuck with the political hacks of yesteryear, and the feeling is very much down in the dumps. At every turn Thubron bumps into one religious movement or another: Baptists in Kirgizhia, German Mennonites in Uzbekistan, a synagogue here, a cathedral there, and—not surprisingly—so many mosques you couldn't throw a brick without hitting one. The weaving of Islam into the political life of the republics, though still nascent, is a foregone conclusion, and the people of the region voice the same fears expressed everywhere whenever church invades state: the possibilities of sexual discrimination, religious persecution, interference in education (not that the nation-state has necessarily done so well in these venues, locals add). Thubron laces the narrative with gobs of history. Each place he visits comes drenched in a mythic past, and not just the ancient variety typified by Mongol hordes and the silk road, but also some of the more recent vintages: gulags pepper the land, and it was in Kazakhstan that the Soviets tested their atomic weapons and built the vilest of their heavy industry. Life has always been eventful in Central Asia; no doubt it will remain so. And if Thubron can't predict the future, he does provide all manner of telling detail to bring the region out of fable and onto terra firma. (First serial to CondÇ Nast Traveler)
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-018226-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
The audience for this long-winded but well-meaning memoir will consist of TV-biz nerds and Cagney & Lacey devotees.
A memoir for hardcore fans of Cagney & Lacey, penned by its former producer.
From 1982 to 1986, the acclaimed TV series was one of CBS’s prime-time anchors, garnering huge audiences, critical plaudits and numerous awards. Producer Rosenzweig was there from the beginning to the bitter end. The author adored the show; it was his baby, and he made certain that everything about it–the writing, acting, casting and costumes–met with his exacting standards. His love for the show was so enduring that more than 20 years after it was cancelled, he was compelled to share the entire experience in a lengthy memoir. Though the author’s heart is in the right place, the book is detailed to the point of tedium: Each battle with the network, financial negotiation, encounter with the actors and the writing staff is related in painful detail. The book is written in bite-size, episodic chapters, which makes the narrative uneven, and the prose is often clumsy–“Scoff and titter are not commonplace verbs in my vocabulary. They are the only terms I can conjure to portray the behavior to which I felt I was being exposed.” Readers won’t begrudge Rosenzweig for sharing his moment in the sun with the TV-watching public. His passion for the show and television in general is palpable, and this book might well inspire budding producers to follow their aspirations.
The audience for this long-winded but well-meaning memoir will consist of TV-biz nerds and Cagney & Lacey devotees.Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2006
ISBN: 978-0-595-41193-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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