Sometimes entertaining, sometimes annoying: an essay that takes the reader on a trip around the author’s psyche but...
An introspective, idiosyncratic tribute to train-hopping, replete with nods to Kerouac, Whitman, Hemingway, Twain, London and Thoreau.
Hyper-prolific novelist, short-story writer, essayist and journalist Vollmann (Europe Central, 2005, etc.) “catches out” freight trains, sometimes alone and sometimes with his nimble, chubby, middle-aged friend Steve. They evade railroad bulls in dreary train yards, often hunkering down in rainy darkness and drinking beer until they see their chance to climb aboard. Conformity, rules and regulations are clearly anathema to the author. He writes of his loathing for “the unfreedom that is creeping over America,” a place he likens to a railroad humpyard where “cars and citizens can be nudged down the hill onto various classification tracks.” Train-hopping is his response to the recurrent feeling, “I’ve got to get out of here.” It’s all about freedom, living more intensely and seeing things that he would never see otherwise. The landscapes and wildlife Vollmann glimpses along the way make this in some small sense a travelogue of the western states, but he has a much greater interest in human behavior. He explores hobo jungles and seeks out lifelong train-hoppers to interview, trying rather unsuccessfully to extract from them the truths of their sad, dangerous, lonely lives. More than 60 amateurish black-and-white snapshots by Vollmann capture trains, train yards, views from the open doors of freight cars, hobos and a distasteful assortment of graffiti, often hate-filled and featuring crude, sexually explicit drawings. Boarding a freight train with an unknown destination is a gamble, he writes, “much like life; you don’t know the future.”
Sometimes entertaining, sometimes annoying: an essay that takes the reader on a trip around the author’s psyche but otherwise seems to go nowhere.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-125675-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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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