We generally think of potboilers as knocked-off, hack novels meant to bring in some cash and attention (``keep the pot boiling'') until the author can come up with another ``real'' book. How unfortunate, then, to have the word ``potboiler'' occur to one while reading Scwartz's memoir of her life as a reader. Schwartz (The Fatigue Artist, 1995, etc.) is known as a novelist whose strong, fiercely felt prose—whose good prose- -often fails to cohere in a fully realized novelistic framework. This memoir, alas, is no different. Reading is a great subject. Not nearly enough books or essays (outside academia, anyway) have been devoted to it, and certainly very few have achieved the literary immortality of, say, Walter Benjamin's essay ``Unpacking My Library.'' Because of this, there is a temptation here to be uncritical and lap up the not-insignificant charms of Ruined by Reading—as Schwartz (in a narrative ranging from childhood to success as an author) laps up Heidi, A Little Princess, Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field, etc. The problem is that very little of enduring satisfaction results. Schwartz's reminiscences are centered largely on her child and teenage self—and childhood can be a breeding ground for adult sentimentality and excess. The book will have resonances for many readers—but mainly short- lived ones. Why? Haste (or a sense of it, anyway). Self- indulgence. The good stuff is terrific—as when the college-age Schwartz recommends Kafka to her parents, then receives a phone call from her father reporting a distinct difference in their readings and demanding to know what The Trial was really about. ``My heart leaped,'' she writes. ``This was exactly what I wanted. We should theorize this way every waking hour.'' Best for an unsophisticated audience of book-lovers: The sophisticates may feel that they could have done it better.
Pub Date: May 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-8070-7082-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996
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
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