As these passionate essays attest, Hofmann cares deeply: about writing, art and the creative possibilities of criticism.
A noted critic celebrates the arts.
In this vibrant collection of previously published essays, poet, critic and translator Hofmann (Poetry and Translation/Univ. of Florida; Selected Poems, 2009, etc.) elevates criticism to an art. He amply fulfills his aim to “investigate and animate” his subjects, “make them resonate, play with and in and over them….” Many of those subjects are poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Basil Bunting and John Berryman. But Hofmann also extends his “noticings” to painter Max Beckmann, writer and artist Kurt Schwitters, and Austrian playwrights Arthur Schnitzler and Thomas Bernhard. He considers Günter Grass’ belated admission of SS membership (“The horrible suspicion arises that Grass’ deepest project here is the destruction of meaning. Not so much ‘peeling the onion’ as ‘applying the whitewash’ ”). Hofmann also reflects on Antonioni’s movie The Passenger, “a mystery or a mystification” that he found especially powerful. Among the most luminous essays are those responding to poets and their work. The Bishop-Lowell correspondence, writes Hofmann, reads like “an epistolary novel” that reveals “an ideally balanced, ideally complex account of a friendship, a race, a decades-long conspiracy, a dance (say, a tango?).” Bishop emerges as the more sympathetic of the two, offering “arresting and beautiful observations” and genuine interest in her friend; Lowell, on the other hand, “seems to endow even people quite close to him…with very little reality.” An admiring essay on Bishop notes her reticence to engage in the confessional poetry in which Lowell indulged, but an equally admiring essay on Lowell calls him “heroic.” “To say that anyone who cares about poetry should read Lowell is not enough….Anyone who cares about writing, or about art, or about life, should read Lowell.”
As these passionate essays attest, Hofmann cares deeply: about writing, art and the creative possibilities of criticism.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0374259969
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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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