Like a brainier Seinfeld, Gass can write about nothing in particular and about everything, in essays humorous and arch,...
Essays on writers, writing, and contemporary culture by a master of the form.
Preternaturally sensitive, at home in many languages and historical periods, Gass (Reading Rilke, 1999, etc.) only occasionally reminds his readers how much smarter he is than the average philosopher, novelist, or translator. (He is accomplished in all three areas.) These essays are most often amiable digressions into territory most people don’t spend much time exploring: the meaning of the city in literature, say, with a nod to one of his favorite writers about cities, Italo Calvino; or the making of lists as an expression of consciousness and as a literary form (does a list, he wonders, “possess an isomorphic formality with elements outside itself?”); or the origin of true innovations in fiction, where innovations “are nearly always formal,” meaning “the expression of style at the level of narrative structure and fictional strategy”; or—particularly timely—the chilling effects of Islamic fundamentalism on literature: “Fundamentalists will not rest, for to rest, as with a cyclist, is to fall; to rest may be to realize that their light comes from a faraway star, that their mode of life has been dead for a long time, and the world in which they are busy killing and constraining is already a bier into which they, with their miseries, have been born.” Only infrequently in these essays, many born as occasional pieces or lectures, does Gass say the expected thing, as when, for instance, he reminds his readers that the craft of writing, like any other craft, requires lots of exercise. More often, he views the world idiosyncratically, spilling out fresh gems at every turn.
Like a brainier Seinfeld, Gass can write about nothing in particular and about everything, in essays humorous and arch, complex and accessible—and always good fun.Pub Date: March 6, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-41257-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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