An illuminating exploration of the life of the mind and the sometimes-fraught production of art.
A spirited re-creation of the world of the German founders of the post-Enlightenment movement.
Following on her excellent biography of Alexander von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature, Wulf reconstructs the intellectual circle of the German town of Jena, which Caroline Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling, a local “translator, literary critic and muse,” called “the Kingdom of Philosophy.” The reigning spirit of that circle was, perhaps arguably, the eminent writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—arguably because his pals played snarky games behind his back, one calling him an “old worn-out demigod,” and because his real home was nearby Weimar, not Jena. “The Jena Set” would do their squabbling English romantic successors proud: A new argument or schism was always brewing, sometimes over matters of philosophy and sometimes over personality, as with the split between the Schlegel and Schiller clans. “As her dislike grew, Charlotte Schiller began to advise others to fumigate their rooms once Caroline Schlegel had left,” writes Wulf of one episode in the feud, while August Wilhelm Schlegel wrote in a letter to a friend, “People hate us—good! They curse us—even better! They make the sign of the cross to ward us off like blasphemers, Jacobins, and corrupters of youth—God be praised!” For all the rancor, Wulf notes, the productivity of the Jena circle was astounding: dozens of philosophical tomes (especially Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit), natural-history treatises, poems, and, from Goethe, long-in-the-making works such as Faust. Indeed, “The Jena Set’s ideas rippled out from the small town in the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar to the wider world,” championed in Britain by Coleridge and Carlyle and by Thoreau and Emerson in the U.S. Many of their fruitful ideas remain: nature as a living thing, art as a way of uniting humans with nature, and, against the background of the Napoleonic Wars, their insistence on individual rights.
An illuminating exploration of the life of the mind and the sometimes-fraught production of art.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-525-65711-8
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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