The editors of the Norton anthologies need not worry: their position in literature and in the market remains secure.
A literary anthology and textbook incorporating some three dozen presumably teachable essays—some of which are not essays at all.
Why would Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony: The United States (1934), a classic of modernist poetry, figure in an anthology devoted to the essay? We’ll never know, apart from the whispery suggestion that the poem had its origins in court transcripts that were then broken into lines of verse “to accentuate common speech”—thus, presumably, qualifying as an essay. But what of T.S. Eliot’s “Dry Salvages,” the third of his famed four quartets? Again, D’Agata (Creative Writing/Univ. of Iowa; About a Mountain, 2010, etc.) offers an indistinct distinction in which an essay is presumably a piece that addresses “how each of us individually processes perception, how experience is layered, and knowledge uncertain.” At this point, Montaigne would be reaching for his rapier. The value added to an anthology of any sort is the interpretation of the pieces that make it up on top of whatever rarity or literary quality they might have. In this regard, the editor’s glancing notes are far from useful; although admittedly poetic and spiritually embracing, his remark that the book finds its contents “situated as essays always are between chance and contrivance, between the given and the made” is completely unhelpful. As for rarity? Any anthology that includes Henry David Thoreau’s “Walking,” available in dozens of other anthologies and hundreds of websites, lacks vigor; several hundred pages are in the public domain and readily available elsewhere. What about literary quality? In that regard, the anthology shines, for there are some very good things, including selections from the captivity narratives (not essays, mind you) of Mary Rowlandson, albeit without meaningful interpretation of her place in literary history; from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s now little-read The Crack-Up, ditto; and from Gay Talese’s essential but still already much-reprinted “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”
The editors of the Norton anthologies need not worry: their position in literature and in the market remains secure.Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55597-734-4
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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
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