The author’s Sicilian Odyssey was brief but intense, spent peering indefatigably behind or underneath the deceptively...
If the gods couldn’t get enough of Sicily, figures novelist Prose (Blue Angel, 2000, etc.), the island must have plenty going for it—and she’s right.
This latest in National Geographic’s sophisticated, fleet, intelligent series of travel writing finds Prose seeking “that Sicilian gift for extracting beauty from the harshest and most painful truths, for compelling death to admit its debt and allegiance to life, for creating an enduring—a vital and living—masterpiece.” She does a good job of it all. She writes with a cautious lyricism about a land where natural and manmade splendors coexist with sustained and terrible bloodshed (also caused both by nature and by man), calling up a colorful, brutal history seen in a remarkably preserved Greek Temple or Roman mosaic; a giddily baroque Palermo and the stinking, fuming Gela; the sweep of ocean and hills below Erice, that severe, frosty town that suggests how “it must feel to be inside a diamond; its perfection is almost physically painful.” Prose has the descriptive touch, whether summoning a ghostly Phoenician outpost, the pink and ochre palaces of Ortygia, or a raw and primal fish market. She makes vivid the distinctiveness of the island’s cooking despite its use of only a few, common ingredients, and doesn’t avoid the disorientation that comes when organized crime becomes the law. She is very good with history, and Sicily has a furious one, which Prose treats with a light hand for all its action and misery, with Romans being chased out by Vandals, those in turn conquered by Ostrogoths before the island was annexed by Byzantium, only to fall to the Saracens, who built Palermo’s 300 mosques and turned it into the capital of Islamic civilization, which would soon be overwhelmed by Normans, “the Hell’s Angels of the medieval world.”
The author’s Sicilian Odyssey was brief but intense, spent peering indefatigably behind or underneath the deceptively obvious. (Photographs)Pub Date: March 4, 2003
ISBN: 0-7922-6535-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
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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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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