A LITTLE HISTORY OF LITERATURE

Name: A LITTLE HISTORY OF LITERATURE
Author: John Sutherland
ISBN: 978-0-300-18685-7

by John Sutherland ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2013

A lively, informative book in which the author shows how literature “enriches life in ways that nothing else quite can.”

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A genial, enthusiastic guide leads a jaunt through literary history.

As part of the publisher’s Little History series, Sutherland (Emeritus, Modern English Literature/University College London; Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, 2012, etc.) distills into 40 chapters the big subject of world literature, from its beginnings in myth to its myriad current forms as e-books, graphic novels and interactive websites. Encouraging his audience to become readers and re-readers, Sutherland believes that a children’s classic such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—no less impressive than T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land or Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children—“helps make sense of the infinitely perplexing situations in which we find ourselves as human beings.” Many chapters focus on particular authors, mostly canonical favorites: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, Defoe, Austen, Dickens, etc. Sutherland groups 20th-century writers by theme: Kafka, Camus, Beckett and Pinter, for example, comprise “Absurd Existences”; Lowell, Plath, Larkin and Hughes represent “The Poetry of Breakdown.” Sutherland’s deftness is impressive. In a mere five pages, for example, he explicates unconventional narratives, from Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to works by J.G. Ballard, Bret Easton Ellis, Julian Barnes, John Fowles, Italo Calvino, Paul Auster, Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme and B.S. Johnson, whose novel The Unfortunates “was published as a boxed set of pages which the reader can put together in any order they please.” Sutherland is confident in his assessment of great works, but he is open to the idea that “pearls” can be found among what some people call “the crud” of popular commercial fiction. His aim is not to draw a line between high art and low, but to share his prodigious joy of reading.

A lively, informative book in which the author shows how literature “enriches life in ways that nothing else quite can.”

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-300-18685-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ORWELL'S NOSE
by John Sutherland

- BOOK REVIEW
STEPHEN SPENDER
by John Sutherland

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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.