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CRITICAL MASS

Name: CRITICAL MASS
Author: James Wolcott
ISBN: 978-0-385-52779-8

FOUR DECADES OF ESSAYS, REVIEWS, HAND GRENADES, AND HURRAHS

by James Wolcott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2013

An eclectic collection that reasserts the author’s reputation as one of America’s most perceptive, candid and humane critics.

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A veteran culture critic for Vanity Fair and other publications weighs in and waxes wise on TV, comedians, music, movies, books and writers.

Wolcott, who has written a memoir (Lucking Out, 2011, etc.), a novel and a collection of political commentaries, is an unusually erudite critic who writes with considerable humor, compassion and empathy—though his toolkit includes a deadly straight razor, as well. After a brief introduction, he launches into the collection, which is almost entirely chronological within each section (there are a few exceptions). He begins with that classic TV flare-up between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal in 1968, an event which he revisits more than 400 pages later in a lacerating review of Fred Kaplan’s biography of Vidal. One of Wolcott’s great strengths is his visual sense and his metaphorical power; something impressive appears on nearly every page. Johnny Carson was “the comedic virtuoso of the superego”; Parker Posy, “scarily thin…plunges blade-like into every scene”; Sam Peckinpah “seemed to have a hand grenade for a heart”; Joyce Carol Oates’ A Bloodsmoor Romance is “a speck of inspiration that somehow metamorphosed into a word-goop with a ravenous case of the eaties”; Truman Capote was “a debauched angel.” Hungry readers will gobble these phrases like Halloween candy. Throughout the collection, Wolcott reveals his admiration for the work of Norman Mailer; his ambivalence about Vidal; his disdain for Oates and Richard Ford; and his respect for Philip Larkin and James Garner. He deals frankly with the private lives of writers—the laundry of Mailer and Styron dangles in the open air—and there is a series of essays about the Amises, father and son, which reveals all their darks, lights and grays.

An eclectic collection that reasserts the author’s reputation as one of America’s most perceptive, candid and humane critics.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-385-52779-8

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: July 28, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
LUCKING OUT
by James Wolcott

- BOOK REVIEW
ATTACK POODLES AND OTHER MEDIA MUTANTS
by James Wolcott

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CATSITTERS
by James Wolcott

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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.