Margaret Atwood's poetry is too good for the implicit condescension in the acclaim for her as a woman writing about women—and judging from her new book, she is getting better all the time. Her poems straddle the line where personal and general history meet. Even at her most intimate, she is—in the large—"The Woman Who Makes Peace With Her Faulty Heart": "We know that, barring accidents,/ one of us will finally betray the other." A 19th-century massacre of Quebecois by imported Scottish mercenaries also acquires a more general cast in her hands: "Those whose houses were burned/ burned houses. What else ever happens. . . ?/ . . . still hungry,/ they watched the houses die like/ sunsets, like their own/ houses. Again/ those who gave the orders/ were already somewhere else,/ of course on horseback." She is direct and scrupulously honest; her advice to her small daughter could be her own credo: "I would like to say, Dance/ and be happy. Instead I will say, in my crone's voice, Be/ ruthless when you have to, tell/ the truth when you can see it." Her work is not without flaws or faults: often predictable last lines; the mannered use of pause or full stop in the middle of a line, followed by an apparently pointless enjambment ("Nothing stays free, though on what ought/ to be the lawn. . ./ . . ./ outside the wire, there's the dying/ rose hedge. . ."). But when she is in top form—as in "Marrying the Hangman," a subtly political portrait of gender and power—she establishes her fight to be taken very seriously indeed.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1981
ISBN: 0671253700
Page Count: -
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1981
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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