The three-part title essay here is Wilder's reworking of sections from his 1950 Norton lectures at Harvard — and, though hardly profound, it shows Wilder at his most topsyturvy thoughtful and folksy-smart eloquent. His theme is the independent, "disconnected" American personality, how it changed literature's English English into American English. And, from his opening gambit ("When I think of those who founded this country I soon find myself thinking of those who did not come") through discussions of Thoreau, Whitman, and Moby Dick ("The first eleven pages . . . are the worst kind of English English"), he's endearingly provocative, at his very best on Emily Dickinson: she "enjoyed many a witches' sabbath with the language"; her forms of speech are those of "a winning child . . . the bright remarks that set the dinner table laughing"; and when she suddenly stops rhyming, "the effect is as of a ceiling being removed from above our heads." But the other 200+ pages here, alas, are on a much lover level: dated dramatic theory; an ode to Oedipus Rex and a so-so putdown of Shaw ("he could only think by ricochet"); mild toyings with Goethe and Joyee; pedantic glosses on the work of friend Gertrude Stein; eulogies and (!) research papers. A weak potpourri, then, not quite justified by that one grand essay.
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 1979
ISBN: 158348387X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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