The second major Austen biography of the season expertly places the great novelist in her historical moment, without attempting to fully plumb her psyche. Austen, writes Tomalin (The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, 1991, etc.), ``has a way of sending biographers away feeling that, as Lord David Cecil put it, she remains `as no doubt she would have wished—not an intimate but an acquaintance.' '' Tomalin does indeed fall short of conveying the kind of three-dimensional portrait so painstakingly achieved by David Nokes in his recent Austen biography (p. 1012). She speculates on how the novelist's sojourn with a village wet nurse affected her in infancy, on how she handled heartbreak as an adult, and on the impact of the various family crises that marked her later life—guesswork being of the essence for the Austen biographer, given that most of her correspondence was destroyed by her family after her death. But Tomalin doesn't convince with her tentative explanations of what made Austen tick. Be it somewhat lacking in depth, however, the sketch of the famous author that emerges from Tomalin's unassuming, lucid, and concise account of Austen's family life and of her meteoric rise to fame in her last years does do justice to the integrity of her complex character. Her mobile intelligence and biting humor come across smartly. What's more, Tomalin offers impressive accounts of the evolution and meanings of Austen's novels, and of how she and her works related to their literary antecedents, from Samuel Johnson to the popular novelist Charlotte Smith, and to their historical context of revolution and war. Nice historical detailing—attention, for example, to the expense of the paper on which Austen wrote—adds period flavor. Recommended for those seeking a brief introduction to Austen's life, times, and work; those wishing to burrow deep into the author's consciousness will want to consult Nokes. (16 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-44628-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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