Insightful essays express guarded hope for Latin America’s future.
Essays on Latin American politics reflect 5 tumultuous decades.
Nobel Prize winner Vargas Llosa (Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society, 2015, etc.), born in Peru in 1936 and who ran for president of his home country in 1990, reflects on the politics and culture of Latin America in essays written over more than 50 years. Translated by Kushner and selected and introduced by Carlos Granés, a Colombian-born social anthropologist and scholar of Vargas Llosa, the essays reveal the trajectory of the author’s views from a leftist supporter of Fidel Castro to a conservative critic of various “collectivist ideologies” that he sees as having blighted Latin America. Granés groups the essays into five sections that are thematically related but not presented chronologically. In an informative foreword, he contextualizes the author’s work as responses to political events that occurred from the Cuban revolution of the 1950s, which Vargas Llosa considered “a model within socialism,” to the current upheaval in “impoverished, damaged Venezuela, devastated by demagoguery and corruption” under the presidency of Nicolás Maduro. Castro’s regime lost Vargas Llosa’s respect in 1971 when the Cuban ruler imprisoned the poet Heberto Padilla for “counterrevolutionary criticism” expressed in his poems. In response to Padilla’s public humiliation—he was forced to engage in self-criticism—Vargas Llosa, along with dozens of other writers, sent a strident rebuke to Castro, communicating “shame and anger” over his repression of freedom and abuse of human dignity. Many essays argue for intellectual openness: “the way in which a country strengthens and develops its culture,” the author wrote in 1981, “is by opening its doors and windows, widely, to all intellectual, scientific, and artistic currents, stimulating the free circulation of ideas.” Headnotes would have been a welcome addition to the collection; although Granés dates each piece, there is no indication of where they appeared or for what occasion. An exception is a warm memoir of literary friendships delivered at the first “Canon of the Boom” Congress in Madrid in 2012.
Insightful essays express guarded hope for Latin America’s future.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-25373-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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