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SPEAKING OF LITERATURE AND SOCIETY

Name: SPEAKING OF LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
Author: Lionel Trilling
ISBN: 015184710X

by Lionel Trilling & edited by Diana Trilling ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1980

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The last in the series of Trilling's collected works, this grabbag of previously uncollected oddments—reviews, questionnaire responses, transcribed scholarly addresses—provides some interesting changes of shading in the portrait of the good gray moderate Force of the Fifties. "There is only one way to accept America and that is in hate," Trilling the Marxist writes in 1930—at the same time resisting seeing in Dos Passos' U.S.A. the greatest thing since the Song of Songs. As a Jew, Trilling protests against the stacked-deck moralizing of Ludwig Lewisohn; a few years later, he's basically declaring himself as denatured of the Tribe as possibly can be. Trilling's real faith seemed to be in refinements, especially two: a stalwart liberalism (refined out of Marxism) and orthodox Freudianism (Judaism's offshoot?). When he writes here about the punishing beauties of society (as he does with almost fearful respect in two fine short appreciations of Fitzgerald and O'Hara) or the beautiful punishment of psychoanalysis (knowledgeable nods toward Jones' Life of Freud and Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death), he is in his tinkering element: in the forces of social and neurotic life, everything is in the state of constant, liquid adjustment Trilling's temperament felt most comfortable with. He stubbornly resists (not once but twice) Partisan Review enquiries—PR's old flank-tightening hunger for alignments—with these words: "I think it is useless and even harmful to spend time in formulating a clear and distinct idea of the literary weather—either you're embarked or you're not embarked. If you are embarked, the weather report can only tell you you're a fool." Uncharacteristically blunt and playful, this is the voice of a tinkering moderate with his nap up. Widow Diana Trilling contributes an anecdotal afterward, mostly biographical, which is only interesting. Minor, leftover Trilling—for completeness only.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1980

ISBN: 015184710X

Page Count: 458

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1980

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
LIFE IN CULTURE
by Lionel Trilling ; edited by Adam Kirsch

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT
by Lionel Trilling & edited by Leon Wieseltier

- BOOK REVIEW
OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE AND OTHER STORIES
by Lionel Trilling

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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.