A slim volume that roams across continents, genres, and centuries to convey that which is so difficult to express.
An allusive and elusive collection of meditations on being and becoming, rites of passage, boys and the men they become.
In her acknowledgements, Howe (Second Childhood, 2014, etc.), best known for her poetry, writes that these prose pieces and poems initially were published in a variety of places and that some were presented at conferences. The way they are organized, they seem to cohere as a whole, though readers’ challenge is to find similar meanings in the films the author loves and frequently references. “I have learned only recently that films are very similar to hallucinations, which are physiologically the same as experience,” she writes. In reference to a director whose influences are clear and a saint for whom she offers something of an alternative biography, Howe writes, “Rossellini’s ethic in filmmaking was Franciscan: to use little money, shoot spontaneously, and edit not much. Like the ‘first word, best word’ school of poetry, Rossellini mistrusted the process of refinement and treated his films as some might treat their notebooks, or first drafts.” There is very much a cinematic quality to the way these pieces connect and convey their meaning, and there’s also a sense that these might be notes toward something more immediately coherent. When the author writes of the “forever potential” of the child who resists yet can’t “stop its evolution into a grownup,” readers are invited to connect this with her provocative illumination of a poet’s soul of the surviving Tsarnaev brother and his reflections before the Boston Marathon bombing—and then to connect that with the life of a young rebel who would become a saint: “Francis was an idealistic teenager, an iconic candidate for today’s teenage gangs and jihads.”
A slim volume that roams across continents, genres, and centuries to convey that which is so difficult to express.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55597-756-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
