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
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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