With essays spanning more than 20 years, this collection provides a surefire introduction to Goldbarth’s prose—but the trip...
For those who think clearly written prose is for sissies, Goldbarth is back—with a representative essay collection that both dazzles and stupefies with its complications.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his poetry, Goldbarth is also an acknowledged innovator of the literary essay, with three collections to his credit (Dark Waves and Light Matter, 1999, etc.). Some of his best-known works appear in this collection, including “After Yitzl” and “Parade March from That Creaturely World” (both of which introduce his preoccupations with the movement of time and memory). All the essays display his trademark mélange of dense poetic phrasing, multiple story lines, historical events, and pop culture—which, for sheer bulk alone, is amazing. But while his knowledge of arcana, language play, and dexterity at interweaving stories (most notably in “Worlds”) may astound, it will also serve to keep readers away. The mounds of facts (whether about Madame Curie or Krazy Kat or Theseus) and overwrought phrases (about food, sex, the galaxy) are too much for the average well-read philistine. Reading through the mass of references and odd locutions on faith (and without a Columbia Encyclopedia at hand) erodes much of the emotional impact of the experience. The result is an admiration of Goldbarth’s work combined with very little enjoyment of it—and a perplexity as to what the point of his writing is in the first place. Is it to show the vastness of the human mind at work and the inability of two randomly meeting minds to connect? If so, why read?
With essays spanning more than 20 years, this collection provides a surefire introduction to Goldbarth’s prose—but the trip may not be much fun the first time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55597-321-3
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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