Illuminating in key spots, but a slog for nonacademics.
How did 19th-century American novelists deal with liberty, equality, slavery and the changing role of religion in American life? That’s the question Gura (American Literature and Culture/Univ. of North Carolina; American Transcendentalism: A History, 2007, etc.) sets out to answer in this comprehensive survey.
On one side stood conservatives like James Fenimore Cooper, whose novels “demonstrate a belief that the ambitions unleashed by liberalism and capitalism needed strong regulation, if not outright elimination.” There was also Robert Montgomery Bird’s 1836 experimental novel Sheppard Lee, which suggested that people are happiest when they accept their social role. Likewise, The Lamplighter, Maria Cummins’ widely popular 1854 novel of a struggling orphan girl, “instructs the reader to acquiesce rather than to resist.” The novelists on the other side—spurred over time by Darwin’s theory of evolution and the social philosopher Charles Fourier—were re-examining accepted notions of equality, faith and community. Sara Payson Willis Parton’s 1854 novel Ruth Hall “had little interest in Christian submission and morality.” Harriet Beecher Stowe’s overwhelming Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) brought slavery to the forefront, as well as a number of foundational African-American narratives. Gura knows his field and draws many credible connections, but he's also long-winded and tends to smother his insights in countless plot synopses. While his attention to so many forgotten writers is commendable, it's perhaps telling that his writing only really comes alive when he's wrestling with the big fish. He's superbly cogent on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance (a critique of the kind of communal living inspired by Fourier) and impassioned about all things Melville. The Confidence-Man, he writes, sounded an alarm "about the nation's descent into mere self-indulgence and, so, possible irrelevance."
Illuminating in key spots, but a slog for nonacademics.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8090-9445-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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