Like much of Dreiser’s fiction, unlikely to be taken up for sheer reading pleasure.
A dry, literal, strictly by-the-book new biography of the Hoosier novelist favored by American mythmakers but excoriated by stylists.
Less than 15 years after the completion of Richard Lingeman’s two-volume Theodore Dreiser (1986, 1990), it’s hard to justify another examination of this unlovable naturalist whose public contentiousness obscured his literary achievement. But Loving (English/Texas A&M; Walt Whitman, 1999, etc.) was determined to write a biography “in which this controversial life was put back into the context of his great literary contributions.” Indeed, Loving has examined every inch of Dreiser’s considerable output and sets each character and plot twist into the framework of the author’s long life (1871–1945). It’s a tedious scholarly task to pursue the story of this last of 12 siblings born to struggling German Catholic immigrants in Terre Haute, Indiana, who left home to seek his fortune in his late teens and transformed himself from a newspaper hack into a determined, disciplined, and finally, with An American Tragedy in 1925, rich novelist. The lukewarm publication in 1900 of Sister Carrie unceremoniously announced a new kind of American literature, closer to the realism of Balzac and Zola: unsentimental, scathing in its examination of real life (high and low), and resistant to facile moral answers. Dogged throughout his career by criticism that his writing was crude, his view of Social Darwinism ugly and immoral, Dreiser was often caught in the contradiction, notes Loving, between “his activist sympathy for the exploited poor in corporate America and his belief in the survival of the fittest.” Overall, the biographer paints a somber portrait of a charmless man who stood by his German roots and hated the British, who could be callous even to friends like long-time supporter H.L. Mencken, and who used women to fulfill an insatiable need for sympathy while exploiting their hard lives to novelistic advantage.
Like much of Dreiser’s fiction, unlikely to be taken up for sheer reading pleasure.Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-520-23481-2
Page Count: 525
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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