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SOME NECESSARY ANGELS

ESSAYS ON WRITING AND POLITICS

Parini is an accomplished novelist (Benjamin's Crossing, p. 410, etc.), poet, biographer, and critic, so it is no surprise that these essays roam all over the literary map. In fact, this volume feels like three shorter books cobbled together. The 20 pieces included here (some appearing for the first time), written over the past 25 years, are grouped in three categories: personal essays with an autobiographical bent; appreciations of other poets; essays on the embattled ground of literary theory. The result highlights Parini's strengths and weaknesses as a writer of nonfiction. The personal essays exhibit considerable charm, particularly when Parini is discussing the process of writing. Regrettably, there's a fair amount of repetition here; for example, we learn several times that Parini and his wife (also a writer) both take considerable pleasure in writing in restaurants and cafes, once in an essay on that habit, again in a piece on the year they spent in Italy, and yet again in a paean to small-town life. By contrast, the middle section is mercifully free of this problem. Unfortunately, with the exception of an excellent piece on Frost—one which helps make that icon of literature seem new once more—the rest of this section is stodgily written, fragrant with the aroma of footnotes left behind and about as compelling as an evening with someone's old graduate seminar papers. That said, it's a complete surprise, then, that Parini's writing on the current wars over theory are incisive and engaging. Drawing on his own experiences as poet, teacher, biographer, and novelist, he makes some nicely forthright judgments on the simultaneous need for and suspicion of theory. Steering a modest middle ground, he makes a sound case for the poststructuralists without being chained to their excesses. A book to be dipped into—at least in its first and last sections—rather than read through, but not without its felicities.

Pub Date: Feb. 19, 1998

ISBN: 0-231-11070-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Columbia Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

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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NUTCRACKER

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

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