This book will create keen interest because it is the last-and-posthumous-work of Gertrude Stein. A brilliant introduction by Thornton Wilder who accomplishes the difficult feat of making clear what Miss Stein was laboring to express in her foggy and repetitious style, and to show that her aims were both extremely definite and interesting. In Four in America, she takes her favorite Americans,- Ulysses S. Grant, Wilbur Wright, George Washington, Henry James- and recreates them as if they had been a religious leader, a painter, a novelist, a military general, respectively. At first view the plan seems to furnish little more than-as Wilder says- a "parlor game". "One soon discovers a very earnest indeed. It asks about how creativity work in anyone, about the relations between personality and gifts, personality and genius. It asks another question: what is an American and what makes him different from citizen of any other country"...An important book because Miss Stein is an important figure in our literary scene. Important also because Wilder's introduction is one of the finest pieces of literary criticism, to be written in our decade. There's a Stein clique.
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1947
ISBN: 0836913817
Page Count: 221
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1947
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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