For all the skewering, this is a well-researched, passionate tribute to books and authors that have left their marks.
A subversive lampoon of the Western literary canon.
Culture writer and creator of the parody Twitter account @guyinyourmfa, Schwartz (Choose Your Own Disaster, 2018, etc.) distills 500 years of literary history through the eyes of a fictional know-it-all. This entertaining guide starts with Shakespeare and winds through Goethe, Tolstoy, Faulkner, and fiction’s heavy hitters, culminating with the Jonathans (Franzen, Safran Foer, and Lethem). Each profile summarizes a particular author’s biographical highlights and major works. Amid factual details, the MFA student inserts revealing asides and footnotes. Off-track forays, from how to roll cigarettes to how to pen dirtier love notes à la Joyce, build a road map for emulating the ultimate writer. Pointed descriptions home in on the features that have stained some of the authors' reputations. Failed marriages, self-absorption, Updike’s infamous Rabbit character, and uglier histories—such as Mailer’s violence—portray a flawed bunch. Comedy writer and cartoonist Katzenstein creates expressive, grayscale headshots with sartorial flair. Ranging from brow-heavy seriousness to closed-mouth smiles, the authors’ faces are humorously annotated. (Of Kafka: “Auteur hair.” Henry James: “Eye bags—genius never sleeps.” Kerouac: “Perfect swoop.”) Each is given a yearbook hall-of-fame title, such as Milton, a “Goody Two-Shoes,” Fitzgerald, who’s crowned “Prom King,” and Vonnegut, “Most Dependable.” Such offhand remarks are clever rather than blistering. Fittingly, the MFA student is blind to his fawning taste. The role demands a misogynist who pretends to be “woke” and who considers New York as the only literary hub worth mentioning. Schwartz's knowingness and thorough commitment are consistently humorous. She writes the MFA guy with sincere, cringing acuity, and the act stays fresh. An affectionate naiveté offsets his ambition, and the literary overview is useful. A reading list rounds out the compendium, a fun read for the aspiring literati.
For all the skewering, this is a well-researched, passionate tribute to books and authors that have left their marks.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-286787-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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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