Lively essays bound to stimulate debate among readers of global literature.
The first of a proposed two-volume collection of essays from one of America’s most ingenious short story writers.
The goal of these essays, writes Davis (Can’t and Won’t: Stories, 2014, etc.), is to “reflect, to some extent, two of the main occupations of my life—writing and translating.” Included here are pieces that range from an appreciation of authors such as Samuel Beckett, Grace Paley, and Franz Kafka, whose works inspired the extremely short stories for which Davis is most celebrated, to essays that reflect her thoughts on the work of translation. Among the latter are essays on John Ashbery’s translation of Rimbaud’s Illuminations, in which she praises Ashbery’s approach “to stay close to the original, following the line of the sentence, retaining the order of ideas and images, reproducing even eccentric or inconsistent punctuation”—not surprising, given that she, too, has been praised (and criticized) for the same approach to translation. Many of the authors Davis explores are French, from famous names such as Proust and Stendahl to comparatively obscure writers such as Maurice Blanchot and Michel Leiris, author of the multivolume “autobiographical essay” The Rules of the Game. Essays on visual artists such as Joan Mitchell and Joseph Cornell are less insightful than the pieces on literature, and some essays rely so heavily on excerpts from other writers’ works that it feels like Davis is showcasing their opinions rather than putting forth her own. However, at her best, she’s an astute critic, as when, in analyzing early works by Thomas Pynchon, she notes his tendency to go “beyond eloquence to a kind of hyper-eloquence that becomes a display of power over language itself that perhaps borders on control by coercion,” or when she writes of poet Rae Armantrout, “under the lens she turns on everything, the refractive lens, a bland world loses its blandness….I see more clearly because of the way she sees.”
Lively essays bound to stimulate debate among readers of global literature.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-374-14885-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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