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
Unadorned, but savvy, business acumen.
Faith-based motivational advice on conducting business, and life, from an auto dealer.
Smalls, an African-American who opened the first minority-owned major auto dealership in Berkeley County, S.C., is a deeply religious individual. He may not be Rev. Ike, but he believes that “if we tell God, our Father, about our dreams of career success or financial freedom, will he not bless us in ways that we could not have imagined?” The author’s God has been a steadying, inspirational force in his life, but the decent, down-home business advice he imparts will put any reader in good stead, religiously inclined or not. Through biblical parables, Smalls explains the rules by which he runs his dealership: focus, diligence, humility, preparedness, being a good neighbor and trusting his gut instincts to do the right thing. Stern but reassuring, he keeps his staff on their toes while making sure they feel integral to the operation. He also provides enriching opportunities out of his own pocket, like schooling that may take employees away from his business but adds to the common weal. Through interviews with Smalls’ family members and associates, co-author Ludlam shows an individual who cherishes his integrity and principles above all else. Smalls may be driven to succeed financially, brimming with diligence and confidence, optimistic and spirited, but honesty and good works never take a back seat to making a buck. As a foil to the hardworking Smalls, the authors created a fictional character, Frank Byggs, a man burdened by regret, self-doubt, defeatism, temptation and negativity. Sure, Frank is an obvious straw man, too easily confuted, but where his weaknesses lead him may be all too familiar to many readers.
Unadorned, but savvy, business acumen.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-595-41254-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Poetic, inspiring proof that you can go home again.
Ten homespun personal essays—most published elsewhere—from the author of last year’s acclaimed novel Jim the Boy.
Earley grew up in a small-town, kudzu-covered corner of North Carolina more recognizable as the terrain of Thomas Wolfe than that of Dorothy Allison. Seven of these pieces explore his early years there, as a 1960s television acolyte, a squirrel-hunting dilettante, and, through it all, an astute, heartbreaking observer of the idiosyncratic people around him. The title story, which appeared in Harper’s, serves as an introduction to this American boyhood, wholly transformed by a color, Zenith television set, replete with rooftop antenna. As the cornerstone entry here, a masterful exercise in metaphor, it’s hard to imagine what more the author could have to articulate about his young life. But Earley thankfully only has more trenchant memories to spin. With “Hallway,” in an equally unadorned language, but with more deeply felt remembrances, Earley recalls, with a child’s perception, his extended family’s peculiarities and his own fearful awe of his grandfather. A look at the odd Scots-derived Appalachian dialect of his youth (“The Quare Gene”) leads to a reflection on the “shared history” that the author is losing with his highland ancestors. A similar wistfulness pervades “Granny’s Bridge,” a tribute to a time when crossing a bridge—and certainly not one to the 21st century—could enhance a person’s outlook. In “Ghost Stories,” Earley takes his wife to New Orleans to investigate the haunted city: “We are looking for ghosts, but, I think, a good story will do.” And the final piece (“Tour de Fax”), another gem from Harper’s, follows him on a record-setting circumnavigational flight, recorded stop by stop in under 32 hours. Earley’s skewering of the trip’s corporate sponsors is good fun, and his capstone epiphany—that where he ended up, at home, is the only place he’d fly around the world to get to—rings true.
Poetic, inspiring proof that you can go home again.Pub Date: May 25, 2001
ISBN: 1-56512-302-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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