A superb outing from a gifted young critic that will spark joy for many readers.
From the delights of decluttering to the stillness of Kyoto’s rock gardens—an intriguing deep dive into the many manifestations of minimalism.
In this lively debut, freelance writer Chayka (New York Times Magazine, n+1, Paris Review, etc.) explores the universal desire for a “different, simpler…more authentic world” as evinced in the austerity of minimalism. Feeling overwhelmed by materialism, many of us believe “less could be better than more—in possessions, in aesthetics, in sensory perception, and in the philosophy with which we approach our lives.” The author’s book draws on examples from throughout history, as seen through the lens of four common qualities: reduction (seeking simplicity through getting rid of things), emptiness (including the minimalism of architect Philip Johnson), silence (exemplified by composer John Cage’s 4’33”), and shadow (reflecting the ambiguity of Japanese Buddhism). In Chayka’s view, the trendy lifestyle minimalism made popular by Marie Kondo and celebrated on SoHo storefronts (“Fewer, better”) is the least of it. Sorting through your house will not bring “happiness, satisfaction, and peace of mind.” The author’s main interest is in the deeper minimalism of visual art, music, and philosophy that works “against” strict rules, offering no advice or solutions but confronting “existential questions on how to live in the modern world.” The best of minimalism, argues Chayka, is found in “the fundamental miracle of our moment-to-moment encounter with reality” in the “quietly meditative” paintings of Agnes Martin, the metal boxes (“just there, without content”) of artist Donald Judd, and Japanese philosopher Shuzo Kuki’s (1888-1941) writing on “iki,” the acceptance of uncertainty. Chayka discusses the lives and works of these and other minimalists, and he chronicles his visits to museums, Zen gardens, art installations, and a sensory deprivation spa, where he discovered the pleasantness of nothingness. The book is so thoughtful and absorbing it is quibbling to wish there were more photos and some consideration of literary minimalism.
A superb outing from a gifted young critic that will spark joy for many readers.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63557-210-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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