Ellison's Invisible Man is our finest, perhaps only really major Negro novel; certainly a literary marker of the last decades. His second book, a collection of essays written over various periods, some when quite young, some as recent as last year, is a rather modest affair. As an essayist Ellison lacks Baldwin's electrical displays, his almost formalized fury; he is sober where Baldwin is dramatic; the prose is more muscular, the insights are intellectual rather than emotional. The pieces do present, however, an autobiographical accounting and the themes, extending from jazz and blues to literature and folklore, are much engagements with a writer's mind as they are facets of a writer's experiences. Here is the confrontation between "outlaw" culture and official culture, between, in fact, Negro America and America as a whole. Especially telling is the inclusion of a Library of Congress address in which Ellison notes his artistic journeyings (the influence of Malraux, the inspiration of Wright, the Marxist phase, his Oklahoma background, etc.); equally noteworthy are a Paris Review interview and two first-rate appraisals of Charlie Parker and Mahalia Jackson. A polemical rebuttal top Irving Howe re social protest and esthetic integrity is as spunky and as topical as anyone could wish.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1964
ISBN: 0679760008
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1964
BOOK REVIEW
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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