Not the vast raw "scrapbook" it was originally designed to be (which was probably unpublishable), this anthology of Burroughs and Gysin's use of the "cut-up" method details a way to go beyond collaboration in writing and into "new connections between images." Rip apart a page from any book or magazine, paste the strips together randomly, read the results: time-schemes and sense-webs are broken. But evidenced by the cut-ups here, the method seems more puerile and coincidental than truly revelatory: the original idea is much better than the result. It's all the more obvious when you read a really written piece like "In the Present Time," which is Burroughs more or less straight, a marvelous carny comic with a wonderful rat-ta-tat delivery; the collages—and the essays about how to make them—seem gray and tendentious by comparison.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0394179846
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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