In a brilliant review of how American writers of the last two centuries have confronted evil by depicting it, Delbanco (Humanities/Columbia Univ.; The Puritan Ordeal, not reviewed) suggests that our postmodern inability to name evil puts us in danger of being dominated by it. The Puritans' notion of the devil, argues Delbanco, was largely as a figure of inner temptation, exemplifying both the sin of pride and St. Augustine's doctrine that evil is essentially a deprivation of good. By contrast, 18th-century thinking replaced the soul with a mechanistic notion of the mind and exalted pride and ambition as entrepreneurial virtues, with the result that evil was viewed more as an external, objective reality. Delbanco believes these opposing outlooks run through American literatureand therefore the American soul. He takes Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin as their classic exponents and sees in Emerson the American civil religion of the (blameless) self; the projection of evil onto the ``other'' reaches an apogee in Ahab's crazed pursuit of Moby-Dick. Delbanco ranks Lincoln as ``the most morally consequential figure in American history'' because he insisted that evil lay in the limitation of the Union rather than in the enemy; but in postbellum racism our author discerns an ominous externalizing of evil, overflowing into cults of physical fitness to show one's racial superiority and, in the '20s and '30s, into eugenics and the sterilization of criminals. Drawing on writers like Reinhold Niebuhr, Susan Sontag, and Richard Rorty, Delbanco concludes with an analysis of our present situation, which he sees as poised between belief and irony, full of moral concern yet unable to articulate a coherent basis for morality beyond the cult of victimization and the blamable other. From his confident grasp of American literature, Delbanco has produced a stimulating portrait of what he calls the nation's ``spiritual biography.'' (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-13566-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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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