PEBBLES, MONOCHROMES, AND OTHER MODERN POEMS, 1891-1916

by William Dean Howells & edited by Edwin H. Cady ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2000

Cady does a creditable job and performs a valuable service in bringing this important and long-overlooked work of a modern...

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Howells was among the first "Western" poets (as those beyond the Hudson were once described) to bridge the gap between elegant, formal Victorian poetry and fully modern American verse. He was steeped in both the waning literary traditions and the newly emergent trends of realism and social justice of the1880s. First claiming national attention for his poetry in 1860, he rose to prominence over the next three decades as an author, playwright, humorous essayist, and novelist. Perhaps the work best known to modern readers is his novel, The Undiscovered Country. The event that most influenced the work of later years featured in Cady's collection was the death in 1889 of Howells's young daughter Winifred. Though he inherited the poetic legacy of Tennyson and Longfellow, Howells was an experimenter in terms of both the "decadence" of his themes and the musicality of his verse (which nevertheless permitted a degree of modern dissonance). While he rejected vers libre and often favored triplets, he was no slave to the classical dictates of strict meter and rhyme. Often his lines scanned loosely and his rhymes were inexact or nonexistent. To critics during the period when "Manifest Destiny" was in force, the dark tone, intensity, and pervasive sadness of his poetry indicated his potential as a decadent writer. His tender conscience and compassionate espousal of the radical social causes of the time reinforced this impression. Howells strove to avoid what he termed "literose" writing (based on other writings rather than actual experience), and he suggested that "realism excludes nothing that is true."

Cady does a creditable job and performs a valuable service in bringing this important and long-overlooked work of a modern Howells to light.

Pub Date: April 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-8214-1318-X

Page Count: 188

Publisher: Ohio Univ.

Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.