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LEARNING A TRADE

Name: LEARNING A TRADE
Author: Reynolds Price
ISBN: 0-8223-2112-2

A CRAFTSMAN'S NOTEBOOKS, 1955-1997

by Reynolds Price ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 1998

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What Price describes humbly as “the ongoing minutes of one craftsman’s effort through more than four decades to learn his business” is, in fact, a monumental entree into the extraordinarily restive, creative mind of the South’s great elegist and one of America’s preeminent moral novelists. Starting in 1955, when the North Carolinian was a young student at Oxford meticulously thinking through on paper his early stories and first novel, A Long and Happy Life, and continuing through the first draft of his latest novel (Roxanna Slade, 1998), Learning A Trade provides a day-by-day record of the evolution of a novelist. Though the prolific writer produced poems, plays, and essays, fiction dominates his attention here. Early on,the notebooks were his de facto writing school, “the place where I’ve worked to teach myself the needs and duties and daily procedures of a competent writer.” We see Price learning his strengths and limitations, discovering how best to work, and developing the rich, poetic language that is his trademark. The notes are a source book (a central repository for “anything I heard or thought that seemed of possible use to the writer I meant to be”) and sounding board. He tries out bits of dialog, last lines, and first lines; engages in self-debate about possible plot developments; and (a recurring theme) hashes out reservations about similarities between new work and old. For readers, much material will be meaningless without first reading the fiction itself. Price scholars will rejoice in the wealth of detail regarding the inspiration for characters, images, and turns-of-phrase (the title for A Long and Happy Life comes from Bridge on the River Kwai, for example). Writers—particularly beginners—will savor Price’s lucid address of the mundane but essential issues of the writing life. An estimable desktop companion for reader and writer alike—a volume remarkable more for its durable flame than for any pyrotechnic flashes. (5 illustrations include drawings by the author)

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-8223-2112-2

Page Count: 640

Publisher: Duke Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
MIDSTREAM
by Reynolds Price

- BOOK REVIEW
ARDENT SPIRITS
by Reynolds Price

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GOOD PRIEST’S SON
by Reynolds Price

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.