For readers craving a one-night stand with American letters, this is satisfying; for a more enduring relationship, look...
American literature in fewer than 200 pages? Fasten your seatbelts.
Hayes (English/Univ. of Central Oklahoma; The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson, 2008) invites us aboard a runaway train careening through the literature of America, zigzagging from Capt. John Smith to Jonathan Franzen. The journey is chronological only within chapters; the organization otherwise is by genre. His first full sentence is the thesis: “American literature is about identity.” Like any similar volume, this one has all the virtues—and failures—of brevity. There is comfort in a simple thesis, surely, though it invites readers to wonder how Hamlet and much of the rest of British literature is not about identity. Hayes’ chapter topics (travel narrative, biography, short story, poetry, drama and the novel) offer a sensible set of destinations, but more literary readers will wonder why some of their favorite writers—Phillis Wheatley, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Kate Chopin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sam Shepard and other luminaries—are either not here at all or are confined to a clause or phrase. Hayes occasionally pauses to consider a single work, some of which are no-brainers (Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, The Great Gatsby), some mere head-scratchers (Melville’s poem “Donelson,” Louis Armstrong’s Swing That Music). The author also includes some writers few will know—e.g., Josiah Gregg, James Lane Allen, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. Hayes' grasp of American literary history is impressive, though not flawless. He writes that As I Lay Dying is told by “several different characters”; there are actually 15.
For readers craving a one-night stand with American letters, this is satisfying; for a more enduring relationship, look elsewhere.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-986206-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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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