Ozick is perceptive as usual, but these often seem like old war-horses revisiting familiar battlefields.
Ozick's new collection of essays from such magazines as The New Republic and The American Scholar thoughtfully explores the delicately calibrated and often adversarial tensions that affect the relation between art and politics.
In her foreword, the author admits to resisting the political, but suggests that in writing on such highly politicized figures as Anne Frank and the Unabomber, she might have "willfully entered the lists of tenet and exigency." While George Orwell may have been right that the claim that "art had nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude," Ozick nevertheless resists those who chide Jane Austen for not criticizing British Imperial policy. Two notable pieces, "Who Owns Anne Frank?" and "Public Intellectuals," provocatively explore these two opposing positions. The first is a quiet but impassioned objection to the way Anne Frank's life (especially in the dramatized version of her diary) has been transformed into a universal message of hope and forgiveness that ignores the reality of evil. In Ozick's opinion, it might have been better if the diary had never been found. In the second, she chides E.M. Forster for making "art for art's sake" the theme of a speech he delivered at a writer's conference in 1941—as war raged in Europe. Two personal essays, "A Drugstore Eden" and "How I Got Fired From My Summer Job," are, respectively, an affectionate recollection of reading in the hammock behind her father's drugstore, and a wryly humorous account of misunderstandings and differing expectations. In other notable essays she compares Dostoevsky, a former radical, with the Unabomber; notes that the movie of Henry James's Portrait of a Lady is inferior to the novel, and again, referring often to James, explores an artist's need to be selfish.
Ozick is perceptive as usual, but these often seem like old war-horses revisiting familiar battlefields.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-41061-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
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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