Often precious, this will strike a chord nevertheless with many old folkies.
A banjo-picking English professor meditates on mountain music and rural lifestyles.
Harvey (English/Young Harris Coll.) began his musical explorations like thousands of other boomers, sitting in front of a record player listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary and other icons of the folk music revival. Career and family concerns led him away from music, but in rural Georgia he discovered the Appalachian tradition of banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, and modal songs. The essays he collects here attempt to convey a sense of what this music says to a modern American, and how its values survive in our present-day world. Harvey has a strong feeling for the music (although he admits to being a mediocre player—one essay recounts his last-place finish in a banjo contest), and his enthusiasm is often contagious. His description of the construction of a homemade banjo is full of fascinating detail, and he is at his best when he refers to specific songs or musicians—even those the reader may never have heard of. But he can’t resist the temptation to fish for deeper significance in his material, a desire that often leads him astray. His essays on the medieval church modes (the foundation of many old mountain songs) pontificate on the emotional significance of each mode, but Harvey’s overwrought metaphors betray the subjective nature of his claims. At the same time, his failure to explain the musical structure of the modes will leave non-musician readers in the dark. He also makes much of the fact that a local pawnshop sells both musical instruments and firearms, a practice hardly unique to the rural South. But he is at his most eloquent when he gives up straining to find unplumbed depths in the experiences of which he writes and lets the material speak for itself.
Often precious, this will strike a chord nevertheless with many old folkies.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8203-2197-4
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Univ. of Georgia
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
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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