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BOTH FLESH AND NOT

Name: BOTH FLESH AND NOT
Author: David Foster Wallace
ISBN: 978-0-316-18237-9

ESSAYS

by David Foster Wallace ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 27, 2012

Not altogether Wallace’s finest work, but it brings some welcome exposure to some of his best pieces.

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Previously uncollected essays and reportage by the late author, reflecting his varied interests, from tennis to Borges to higher math.

This collection is arranged not in terms of chronology but notoriety: It’s front-loaded with three pieces that Wallace fans have long wished to see in book form. “Federer Both Flesh and Not” is a bracing critical study of tennis star Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2006; though Wallace spent face time with the star, quotes are tucked into the author's trademark footnotes, and he writes mainly as a spectator admiring the power of the human body to perform at extraordinary levels. “Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young” is a potent 1988 essay on the roots of what he felt was largely threadbare minimalist fiction. “The Empty Plenum,” an encomium to David Markson’s 1988 novel Wittgenstein’s Mistress, explores the philosophical machinery behind the book and serves as a careful defense of avant-garde fiction. The remainder of the collection is weaker, composed of book reviews and brief essays on politics, sex and the writing life that feel less impassioned than commissioned. A report on the 1995 U.S. Open is a shallower version of Wallace’s infamous cruise-ship article, and a 2001 essay on prose poems fractures the traditional essay form into bullet points to little effect. The best overlooked work here is a set of usage notes contributed to the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus: Wallace has a blast riffing on the fine points of “pulchritude,” “unique,” “hairy” and other words. To stress his status as a lifelong word maven, the pages between pieces are filled with words and definitions from Wallace’s personal vocabulary list, from “croker sack” to “pyknic.”

Not altogether Wallace’s finest work, but it brings some welcome exposure to some of his best pieces.

Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-316-18237-9

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
SOMETHING TO DO WITH PAYING ATTENTION
by David Foster Wallace

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PALE KING
by David Foster Wallace

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2007
edited by David Foster Wallace

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.