This is the first of the annual Thomas Jefferson lectures, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, in which distinguished thinkers of various stripes and specializations attempt to "bridge the gap between learning and public affairs." Trilling, biographer of Arnold and old guard survivor of the 1968 student insurrection at Columbia, enters the breach where one used to find the traditional Western concept of "mind" — that crowning human faculty in which all our hopes were vested — and considers the causes of its present submersion. Most of his contentions are unarguable: that the current intellectual frontiers are well beyond the reach of respectable general intelligence; that the intellectuals themselves are undergoing a crisis of confidence; that political concerns tend to erode the classical integrity of the university; even that the mind's own elitism and technological excesses have helped to discredit it. All well and good, or rather, terrible but true; but behind the reasonable posture and rhetorical cogency there is a stubborn refusal to distinguish "mind" from "the organized intellectual life of our day," that is to say the university. This doesn't exactly clarify the issues, but at least we know which side Trilling is on, if we didn't already. His conclusions are hedged but hopeful, his implied advice — change your head, but not fundamentally. Obviously, he will have readers and probably quoters.
Pub Date: Nov. 29, 1972
ISBN: 0670003778
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1972
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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