A catharsis for writer and reader alike.
The French philosopher opens his heart in a book he never intended to publish.
Following the death of his mother in 1977, Barthes (1915–1980) mourned her with a series of daily reflections written on typewriter paper that he had cut into quarters. These served to focus and distill the writing, which he would do in the morning before working on his course preparation and his last masterwork, Camera Lucida (1980). “Suffering, like a stone… / (around my neck, / deep inside me)” he writes on Mar. 24, 1978, and then underscores the image a couple weeks later: “Despair: the world is too theatrical, a part of the language. // A stone.” The author uses Proust as a frequent point of comparison, with references to Tolstoy and others as well. Though there is little suggestion that Barthes is writing for anyone but himself, he ponders early in the process, “Who knows? Maybe something valuable in these notes?” His musings encompass not only the death of his mother but the essence of mortality: “The truth about mourning is quite simple: now that maman is dead, I am faced with death (nothing any longer separates me from it except time).” As the anniversary of her death approaches: “As for death, maman’s death gave me the (previously quite abstract) certainty that all men are mortal—that there would never be any discrimination—and the certainty of having to die by that logic soothed me.” Yet such soothing doesn’t alleviate his suffering, as he subsequently acknowledges: “I write my suffering less and less yet it grows all the stronger, shifting to the realm of the eternal, since I no longer write it.” With one entry to a page and reproductions from the writer’s diary cards, the volume invites comparison with Nabokov’s posthumously published The Original of Laura (2009), yet where that novel remains incomplete, each of these entries is complete in itself.
A catharsis for writer and reader alike.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8090-6233-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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
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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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