A must for poets and students of poetry and a good start for initiates seeking to understand the constituent parts of its...
A wonderful collection of the great Irish poet and critic’s learned yet down-to-earth prose.
Here, Nobel laureate Heaney (Electric Light, 2001, etc.) takes us on a tour of his intellectual concerns over the course of three decades. Culled from three past collections, including The Redress of Poetry (1995), as well as journals, newspapers, and lectures, the pieces tend to fall into three categories: autobiography, poetry, and politics. No matter the topic, however, Heaney retains the style, focus, and metaphors that make his verse so popular. His writing is always rooted in the everyday, as when he compares memory to village wells and bogs of Ireland, which preserve the sacrificial bodies of men dumped in them. At times these passages may give pause to the reader lacking an English degree. He comments of T.S. Eliot’s images, for example, “They are not what I at first mistakenly thought them: constituent parts of some erudite code available to initiates.” More complicated passages like these, which may beg re-reading, still make their mark because Heaney makes readers feel they are being included in such a welcoming and warm lesson. Some will grow tired of his conservative close readings, no doubt. Whether analyzing Sylvia Plath or Robert Burns, he takes an exacting, line-for-line approach that isn’t as flashy as more recent critical schools. But Heaney is a poet first, and his critical technique reflects his interests as a writer. He is less daunting when discussing the situation in his native Northern Ireland. There he describes the conflict between Catholics and Protestants from the perspective of the victimized citizenry, never as an aloof academic.
A must for poets and students of poetry and a good start for initiates seeking to understand the constituent parts of its erudite codes.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-15496-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
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
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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