Kundera is characteristically incisive, but this is mostly for completists.
A slim volume of early writings by the celebrated Czech author focusing on Central European cultures and languages.
Kundera (b. 1929), who has lived in France since 1975, was part of the influential arts and theater movement in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, which helped spur the Prague Spring of 1968. In these republished essays, Kundera asserts that the revival of Czech culture and language (the Czech National Revival) assured the very sovereignty of the nation against the onslaught of globalization. “The process of integration risks absorbing all the small nations, whose only defense can be the vigor of their culture, the personality and the inimitable traits that are their contribution,” he said in a speech to the 1967 Writers’ Congress. In the showcase essay, “The Kidnapped West, or the Tragedy of Central Europe,” which appeared in the French periodical Le débat in 1983, Kundera wrote more freely on the significance of the cultural affinity between the Central European countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary) and European culture elsewhere, rooted in Roman Christianity and the Enlightenment. Kundera examines the “succession of revolts” that have convulsed these nations in the mid-20th century and how they have all been brutally suppressed by the Soviet Union. He argues that the post-1945 Soviet crackdown on these countries has been no less than “an attack on their civilization. The deep meaning of their resistance is the struggle to preserve their identity—or, to put it another way, to preserve their Westernness.” The author also considers some of the brilliant writers and musicians from these beleaguered nations, examining their existential struggles in opposition to the dominant neighboring German and Russian cultures and languages. Lovely though brief, these essays have fresh resonance as Ukraine remains under siege by Russia. The author’s fans will best appreciate this thin book, but general readers may wish for more pieces and further context.
Kundera is characteristically incisive, but this is mostly for completists.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780063272958
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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