Unique eyes look at familiar things and somehow make them seem both odder and more familiar.
A motley collection of pieces—often quite brief, many previously unpublished—on topics ranging from broken love to stretch marks to Tylenol.
Essayist Noble has a focused, tight style, often employing the technique of looking at somewhat discrete items (or memories) and seeking connections among them. Early in this debut volume, for example, is a series of snippets about the author’s experiences looking in mirrors, from childhood to the present—yes, Narcissus makes an appearance. Later, Noble examines a collection of rings that once belonged to her late grandmother, and she riffs on each one, giving us the histories of the various stones (“Pliny wrote that wearing a diamond wards off insanity”) and the memories she has of them. The author displays admirable candor in some reflections about her love affairs, chronicling not just how they began, but also how they cracked and crumbled, and she does not hesitate to recognize that she was sometimes the one to initiate the cracks. Noble also writes bluntly about her fears of childbirth. Another technique she uses is to compare her life with the lives of literary and historical figures. In a piece about one of her relationships, for instance, she cuts back and forth to and from the story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Evident throughout is Noble’s fondness for reading and literature: Virginia Woolf drifts in and out of a number of essays, and she alludes to Wuthering Heights, Montaigne, Robinson Crusoe, Joan Didion, and Sherwin Nuland, among numerous others. Throughout the collection, Noble delivers many sharp-edged sentences. At the end of an essay about shotgun shells, Noble writes about a spent shell and her target: “I hold a shell in my hand and look at the cardboard box half-shredded on the ground. My thumb, the size of the shell; the hole, the size of your heart.”
Unique eyes look at familiar things and somehow make them seem both odder and more familiar.Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4962-0504-9
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
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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