Another never-before-translated volume by the famous surrealist, from the translator who, along with Bill Zavatsky, recently won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month-Club translation award for Breton's Earthlight. Taking its title from the Star card in the Tarot deck, this heavily annotated 1944 work is extremely dense, difficult to read and to categorize—it combines poetry, memoir, philosophy, a journal, social commentary (criticizing France and the rest of Europe from the safe harbor of America and Canada), a cautionary tale, mysticism (verging on automatic writing), and a political treatise. As in his better-known novel Nadja, Breton turns woman into myth, endowing her with dreamlike, superhuman qualities. Written for (and inspired by) his third wife, Elisa, these ramblings are haunted on a large scale by the shadow of WW II and on a small scale by personal loss. (One bond between Breton and Elisa, if we are to believe surrealist authority Anna Balakian's introduction, was that both had lost a child: he to divorce, she to drowning.) The theme of Arcanum 17, not stated directly until its final page, is the Utopian quest for ``light,'' which ``can only be known by way of three paths: poetry, liberty, and love.'' Breton appended three ``Apertures'' to the text in 1947 in an attempt to make it more accessible. He begins with an apology for his ``polemical fervor'' in the earlier work, but these three pieces are even more polemical, if only because they are more straightforward. He expounds upon elements that his readers found difficult three years before: war, surrealist love, and a friend's account of a chance (most likely preordained) meeting. Truly an unusual work, elegantly translated. Whether readers will be any more receptive to it now than they were 50 years ago remains to be seen.
Pub Date: Aug. 19, 1994
ISBN: 1-55713-170-8
Page Count: 148
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
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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