An intimate literary investigation; those seeking a broader assessment will need to look elsewhere.
A book-length essay on Proust’s masterpiece.
Early on, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Friedländer writes that he believes In Search of Lost Time is not only the greatest novel of French literature, but one of the most important novels ever written.” In this brief, thought-provoking examination that is likely to appeal most to literary scholars he focuses on the “Narrator’s strange, contradictory statements” and how the Narrator functions as Proust’s “alter ego.” The Narrator is a “disembodied presence unlike that in any novel before,” and Friedländer engages in a close reading of the book to “decipher the author’s strategy.” His extensive quoting from the novel and his many debates with other Proust scholars create something of a running dialogue among many voices. After assessing the Narrator’s love-hate relationship with his mother and Proust’s own deep love for his, Friedländer takes on the book’s puzzling treatment of Jews. Proust was Jewish; his Narrator is not. The Narrator’s attitudes toward Jews are “often negative,” and the novel is “replete with anti-Semitic remarks adopted by the Narrator without any comment.” Friedländer notes the importance of understanding the Narrator’s “obsession with the Jewish question in general and his own identity in particular,” and even though the Narrator never “admits to even a whiff of homosexuality,” it, too, plays a key role in the novel. Most of all, In Search is a “social satire on the grandest scale and an incomparable analysis of complex emotional constructs, but it mostly lacks a sense of tragedy.” A “paean to memory,” it’s very much a “novel about time, but with a twist: it is directed toward the future…in order to recapture the past.” It’s “not Proust’s story that we follow,” Friedländer writes, “but that of his Narrator.” The author is a wise, enthusiastic guide to Proust, but this one is mostly for the academic audience.
An intimate literary investigation; those seeking a broader assessment will need to look elsewhere.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-59051-912-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
