The last in the series of Trilling's collected works, this grabbag of previously uncollected oddments—reviews, questionnaire responses, transcribed scholarly addresses—provides some interesting changes of shading in the portrait of the good gray moderate Force of the Fifties. "There is only one way to accept America and that is in hate," Trilling the Marxist writes in 1930—at the same time resisting seeing in Dos Passos' U.S.A. the greatest thing since the Song of Songs. As a Jew, Trilling protests against the stacked-deck moralizing of Ludwig Lewisohn; a few years later, he's basically declaring himself as denatured of the Tribe as possibly can be. Trilling's real faith seemed to be in refinements, especially two: a stalwart liberalism (refined out of Marxism) and orthodox Freudianism (Judaism's offshoot?). When he writes here about the punishing beauties of society (as he does with almost fearful respect in two fine short appreciations of Fitzgerald and O'Hara) or the beautiful punishment of psychoanalysis (knowledgeable nods toward Jones' Life of Freud and Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death), he is in his tinkering element: in the forces of social and neurotic life, everything is in the state of constant, liquid adjustment Trilling's temperament felt most comfortable with. He stubbornly resists (not once but twice) Partisan Review enquiries—PR's old flank-tightening hunger for alignments—with these words: "I think it is useless and even harmful to spend time in formulating a clear and distinct idea of the literary weather—either you're embarked or you're not embarked. If you are embarked, the weather report can only tell you you're a fool." Uncharacteristically blunt and playful, this is the voice of a tinkering moderate with his nap up. Widow Diana Trilling contributes an anecdotal afterward, mostly biographical, which is only interesting. Minor, leftover Trilling—for completeness only.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1980
ISBN: 015184710X
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1980
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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