Book Description
"Drive[s] a four-horse chariot through the nineteenth century....I have enjoyed this book more than I can say."—John Julius Norwich
The Macdonald sisters—Alice, Georgiana, Agnes and Louisa-started life in the teeming ranks of the lower-middle classes, denied the advantages of education and the expectation of social advancement. Yet as wives and mothers they would connect a famous painter, a president of the Royal Academy, a prime minister, and the uncrowned poet laureate of the Empire. Georgiana and Agnes married, respectively, the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and the arts administrator Edward Poynter; Louisa gave birth to future prime minister Stanley Baldwin, and Alice was mother to Rudyard Kipling. A Circle of Sisters brings to life four women living at a privileged moment in history. Their progress from obscurity to imperial grandeur indicates the vitality of 19th-century Britain: a society abundant with possibility. From their homes in India and England, the sisters formed a network that, through the triumphs and tragedies of their families and the Empire, uniquely endured. 16 pages of illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
A good book for a somewhat specialized audience.......2006-05-11
This isn't something that I would recommend to every reader. The title sounds a lot more warm and fuzzy than the sisters were. If you are expecting a heart-warming tale of the days when all families were close and unfailingly took care of one another, this isn't it. One recommendation I would make is to look up the Rudyard Kipling, Stanley Baldwin, Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter in an encyclopedia, the Dictionary of National Biography or on the internet if they are not familiar. I say this not by way of faulting the book, there are too many characters to give each a full treatment, but it helps to have some idea of who these people were.
The book focuses on the daughters of a Methodist minister. Four either married men who became famous or had sons who became famous. Unfortunately, these are generally not terribly charming personalities, so it is no great delight getting to know them unless one is interested in the period or these particular people. But for those with a special interest, I think it will probably be quite interesting. There were also two brothers, one who was rather unsuccessful and one who was quite successful as a Methodist clergyman, but they take a back seat to their sisters both in the book and in the sisters' lives.
The one thing that I would have liked to have seen developed better is successful relations within the extended family. Georgiana Burne-Jones was very close to her nephew Rudyard, but I'm not really certain why. This may be a problem with a lack of sources on this particular point - Flanders can infer from guest books which relatives saw little of each other but more positive information would be necessary for this.
The MacDonald sisters: Alice, Georgiana, Agnes, Louisa and Edith, came from a modest, barely middle-class background. It is quite interesting that three of them married men from equally undistinguished roots, one a man who was perhaps upper middle-class. Despite these seemingly unpromising beginnings, two of the initally undistinguished husbands, Edward Burne-Jones and Edward Poynter (married to Georgiana and Agnes, respectively) became very successful and famous in the field of art. The third husband, Lockwood Kipling, married to Alice, was successful in his field, and their son, Rudyard, would become an international literary success and quite wealthy. The fourth, husband, Alfred Baldwin, married to Louisa, was a model as an industrialist, noted for public service, who went into politics. Their son, Stanley Baldwin, was three time Prime Minister. Many of the less famous members of the family pursued successful careers as writiers, sometimes quite well known in their time. A few were failures as life: either suffering psychological problems, perhaps due to a frustration of their creative potential, or too comfortable as the children of the famous. Judith Flanders attempts to discover how nurture, i.e., being related to the MacDonalds, may have lead to the surprising achievements. I don't think that she really succeeds, not that I believe that we necessarily can ferret out these influences, but she does draw a probing picture of an interesting family. She considers not only the facts, but draws reasonable inferences about the human beings they refer to. She is quite clear about when she is speculating.
Flanders has done an enormous amount of research. There are many notes, a 12-page "Select Bibliography" and an index. There are eight pages of plates, with 45-50 well-selected pictures of the extended family. I particularly want to commend how the notes and index were done. The notes have both the chapter number and chapter running title, making it much easier to match them with the notes in the text. The index has brief explanatory notes in parentheses after the names of less important characters, e.g. (niece of so-and-so), which is often all that is needed, as well as cross-reference to variant names.
Probably not for everybody, but a excellent work for its subjects.
Nowhere near as good as Inside the Victorian Home.......2005-08-14
Ms. Flanders' previous work, Inside the Victorian Home, was as delightful as it was informative. That's why A Circle of Sisters is such a letdown- its informative alright, if you care about a group of self-absorbed cold-natured odd ducks. (In 30 years, brother Harry received two visits from his loved ones. Sister Edie was disparaged as a failure for remaining unmarried, even as they all expected her to play nurse and nanny as their situations saw fit.)The subjects, including Rudyard Kipling, never quite come alive on the page. This may not be entirely Ms. Flanders' fault--there seems to have been an awful lot of letter burning in this family. (Plus its hard to feel empathy for people who kept their emotional lives so tightly buttoned down.) The writing, addtionally, is not as crisp as Inside the Victorian Home. You'll forget these women soon enough, and be glad you did.
That said, her book Inside the Victorian Home is excellent. I highly recommend it.
Book Description
Moll Flanders is one of the best-selling novels of all time. This Norton Critical Edition is again based on the first edition text (1722), the only text known to be Defoe's own. It is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations and the editor's essay outlining the novel's textual history.
"Contexts" collects related documents on criminal transport, contemporary accounts of lives of crime, and colonial laws as they applied to servants, slaves, and runaways.
"Criticism" includes eleven interpretations by Juliet McMaster, Everett Zimmerman, Maximillian E. Novak, Henry Knight Miller, Ian A. Bell, Carol Kay, Paula B. Backscheider, John Rietz, Ann Louise Kibbie, John Richetti, and Ellen Pollak.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the
Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.
Customer Reviews:
Give me not Poverty, lest I steal.......2005-09-03
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'
But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfulle Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke
Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'
Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'
Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'
Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.
Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.
Dust off this musty book for some good social critique.......2004-09-21
Moll Flanders is a typical 18th Century book that one would read in a class about early English novels. Daniel Defoe's so-called `masterpiece' gets labeled sometimes as one of the first novels ever written, and sometimes the prose shows. Written from the first-person perspective of the title character, Moll
Flanders tells the tale of a poor social low-life who has to turn to a life of crime after five failed marriages. Readers receive a rambling narrative of colorful characters that reside in the underbelly of 18th Century London. Moll Flanders was written originally as a sordid account that was to be taken as
`fact,' because of the way that Defoe mimicked the book after a popular form at the time that interviewed criminals on their deathbed. Defoe and his contemporaries used to compile these tales of redemption or non-repentance into what was called the Newgate Records. As the reader feels bad for Moll throughout the text, readers will see her go from a life of barely getting by to marrying her brother by accident to living a life of crime
through her own agency. A sophisticated critique of the prison system and class economics of England, Defoe's work stands the test of time for fresh commentary and readability. While most people might find Defoe's writing style to be a bit antiquated, the story is not, and will most likely reach its intended
audience. It's still true today that those criminals who become public examples are the ones from most of the lower castes, as are most criminals in general. The biggest question in Defoe's Moll Flanders still remains unanswered: How can one move up in a society that benefits those without any sort of inherited wealth or the means to further their position?
Book Description
Peter Bruegels paintingsa peasant wedding in a barn, hunters in the snow, a rollicking street festival, and many othershave long defined our idea of everyday life in 16th century Europe. They are classic icons of a time and place in much the same way as Norman Rockwells depictions of 20th century America. We know relatively little about Bruegel, but after years of research, novelist Rudy Rucker has found a way to tell us the story of this young old master. In sixteen chapters, each headed by one of the artists famous works, Rucker brings Bruegels painters progress and his colorful world to vibrant life, doing for Bruegel what the bestselling Girl With A Pearl Earring did for Vermeer. We follow the artist from the winding streets of Antwerp and Brussels to the glowing skies and decaying monuments of Rome. Bruegel and his friends, the cartographer Ortelius and Williblad Cheroo, an American Indian, are as vivid on the page as the multifarious denizens of Bruegels unforgettable canvases. Here is a world of conflict, change, and discovery, a world where Carnival battles Lent every day, the world preserved for us in paint by the enigmatic and engaging genius readers will meet in the pages of As Above, So Below.
Customer Reviews:
M. C. Eschers inspiration.............2007-01-01
Rudy Rucker has managed to give some insight into the thought processes that created the wonderful works of this 16th century Flemish painter as well as exposing the reader to the hardships endured by the residents of the "low countries" during the merciless Spanish control of the Netherlands.
Brugels early works give a birds-eye perspective of the subject matter as well as depicting religious events as if they were happening in the 16th century. It is my belief that M.C. Escher as well as Salvador Dali both capitalized on Brugels early vision.(See Escher's Tower of Babel as well as Ascending & Descending and several of Dali's works appear to have been inspired by Brugel's "Fall of the Rebel Angels".) Both of these men owe a large debt of gratitude to Brugel for his inspiration.
Although this book is "historical fiction", the author has done such an exemplary job of providing a discerning and perceptive insight into Brugels life and times, it almost reads like an autobiograpy.
If you enjoy history, art, and great storytelling this book is definitely for you! 4 1/2 stars!!!!
Spend some time in Renaissance Belgium.......2003-12-22
Rucker builds a series of chapters around particular paintings by Bruegel, in order to produce a biographical novel that is well-informed concerning the (known) historical details of Bruegel's life and the political and cultural history of the day. The book offers a good way to get engaged with the period and with the paintings. The writing is a bit clunky, and the novel works more because of the inherent interest of the artist and the period than by what the writer contributes. I could easily have put the book down had other things been available, but as it was it served as a welcome companion during a day of many, many delayed flights and long layovers as I flew across the US.
My Favorite Book of this Year.......2003-08-13
My husband and I both love this story of Peter Breugel's life. The book was well researched and obviously written by someone with a life-long passion for Breugel the man, as well as his paintings. It is a beautiful story. My husband and I both agree, we want to go to Europe and see his original paintings after reading this book.
Painless History.......2003-02-22
Not only is this book well-researched and documented but it is an easy read. The times of Europe in the l6th century are colorfully presented and the characterizations are believable. It's easy to get caught up in the intrigues. I'll now view Peter Bruegel's works in a new light. Well-worth a read!
Look deeper!.......2003-01-05
I picked this up blind from the new book bin at the Kailua-Kona public library, and boy, I'm glad I did. I've always enjoyed Bruegel, but this novel really makes you look at each picture with new eyes. Thank goodness I had an art book (Phaidon) of Bruegel at home with big color plates, which really complemented the text of this book. I love the feeling of delving into the past, but with good friends, which is how I think of Bruegel now that I've read this book.
Average customer rating:
- Daniel Defoe at his best.
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Moll Flanders: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (English Library)
Daniel Defoe
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 British
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| 18th Century
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ASIN: 0140431071 |
Customer Reviews:
Daniel Defoe at his best........2000-06-09
Robinson Crusoe has always been Dafoe best known work but in my opinion Moll Flanders is far superior piece of literature. We follow Moll throughout her life of poverty, five marriages, live in crime and at last she finds lasting happiness or contentment. That, of course, is brought about her repentance for the "wicked" life she had led. The novel is written in a format that Moll tells her story in the first person to the audiance of a journalist. If this was a movie the format would be best described as a "Mocumentary". The language is at times difficult but for anyone who has read Shakespeare or other literature from that time it should not be an obstacle. If this story would be published today with contemperary caracters it would in all likelyhood be considered pulp fiction but Moll Flanders is anything but.
Average customer rating:
- Good, but doesn't quite live up to all of its' ambitions...
- A love's merging of language and lust
- An Sprawling and Admirable Epic
- A tale of obsession for the youthful beauty
- An Exercise in Emotional Provocation
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FOLDING STAR, THE: A Novel
Alan Hollinghurst
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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GRIEF
ASIN: 0679436057
Release Date: 1994-10-04 |
Book Description
In self-imposed exile in an ancient Flemish city, an embittered 33-year-old language tutor, Edward Manners, falls in love with his alluring 17-year-old pupil, Luc Altidore. As Edward pursues the elusive object of his infatuation--and plunges into affairs with two other men--this book interweaves past and present, history and memory, into a tapestry of unfulfillable desire.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but doesn't quite live up to all of its' ambitions..........2006-09-17
I was a bit more impressed with Hollinghurst's technical skills here than engaged by the actual story, which revisits aspects of Thomas Mann's DEATH IN VENICE in far more sprawling fashion.
Hollinghurst is a nearly-brilliant writer, though the very lush prose I found to be a touch distracting. But it may be entirely approriate in a tale of an infatuated, youth-worshipping tutor slowly sliding into a highly inapproriate affair with a cherubic student who ultimately turns out to be not quite as angelic as he first would seem to be.
Hollinghurst's tale poses a number of questions which are left hanging: foremost among them would be the youth-obsessiveness in Western culture generally, and gay culture specifically. One is left wondering what the dead end of such a sensibility would be, and as this ethereal and atmospheric epic winds down, that question remains in the air, with a frustrating lack of further elaboration.
-David Alston
A love's merging of language and lust.......2006-01-13
THE FOLDING STAR tells the story of Edward Manners, a sentimentally detached man who leaves England to earn his living as a private language tutor in a Flemish city. The exquisite prose of this 1994 release delineates a man's aching melancholy and longing for love despite his odd sexual economy during the few years prior to his arrival in Belgium. Therefore, unlike the most recent, highly-acclaimed THE LINE OF BEAUTY, the novel affords a plot no more than Edward Manners's hypnotic fantasy of one of his young pupils. The 33-year-old seems to be at the emotional crossroad: he often smiles at his own sense of anticipation, of being poised for change, and is ready to fall in love. But he is not used to spending so much time with one person that he thinks of a committed relationship dreads him.
It might be love at first sight that no sooner has he met Luc than he takes an intimate fancy of him. The adoration quickly becomes a morbid infatuation that manifests into a pepperoni type of spying on the boy during his weekend excursion. He has no doubt driven Edward mad at times - he feels empty and is aching for him. The boy has affected everything Edward does to the point that he suffers without feeling afflicted. The stream of consciousness reflects Manners's despair over the unfulfilled love and the thumping of the heart. He can only console himself with other affairs to which no sentiment constitutes, other than the minimal trust of two people pleasuring themselves together, without much grasp of friendship or understanding.
THE FOLDING STAR is about the unrequited love that leaves a man constantly longing, without the prospect of ever finding love. The mixed feelings of anxious longing and fear of commitment constitute a poignant air that hovers over the novel. It delivers the message that the course of true love never runs straight. The reading reminds one of the similar sentimental nuances Henry James experiences in Colm Toibin's THE MASTER. While Henry James consciously makes it a habit to keep his affection at bay and secretly longs for the intimate companion of a man, Edward Manners always finds himself marveling at how his sudden burst of feeling has wrongfooted him. Both engage in a somnambulist journey to find love. The former lives in such vessel of loneliness and independence - in a social sphere that is pinned and stifled with rules. The latter leaves his home to escape the same constraints only to find himself trapped by his emotions. That his sex life has well petered out before he comes to Belgium is the impediment to his surrender to commitment.
THE FOLDING STAR is a stoic tale about the quest for love. Edward Manners lives among many gay men not only in the regard of the longing for a relationship but also in the sense of the nervousness, excitement, sensuality, and anxiety. One may think of the novel being made up of snapshots all these contradicting emotions that roam back and forth the character. It exquisitely depicts the nuances of affection, the anticipation for intimacy, and the desire of fulfillment of unconditional needs. Hollinghurst renders with artistry and haunting precision love's merging of language and lust.
An Sprawling and Admirable Epic .......2004-12-17
THE FOLDING STAR is a sprawling neo-Victorian achievement, full of memorable characters, breathtaking description, and graphic gay sex. At its surface the novel is the story of Edward Manners - a 40ish, drinky, and rather raunchy former academic who relocates to a small Belgian town to work as a tutor. Almost at once Edward becomes infatuated with Luc, a student. His obsession is comic, tragic, and romantic. With this as its core THE FOLDING STAR then begins to reveal a much deeper and more complex reality. The interconnectedness of various lives and histories soon begins to become apparent, with former details gaining greater significance and literary relief in this engrossing epic of obsession and taboo. This is a wonderful book though I found it a bit dry and somewhat cold...it was a book to admire rather than embrace.
A tale of obsession for the youthful beauty.......2004-11-14
Alan Hollinghurst is certainly a crafty wordsmith. This book is beautifully written.
The story is basically that of an aging gay male becoming obsessed with his beautiful young student. Edward Manners becomes the tutor for a wealthy high school aged fellow, Luc. At first Edward sees a thin immature youth but as the story progresses, Edward becomes more obsessed with Luc and the descriptions of Luc change to match Edward's changing perception. This portion of the story is well told and certainly accurately portrays the process of obsession that seduces gradually, obliterating common sense and good judgement.
Edward recognizes that he has lost his bearings when he finds himself continually thinking about Luc, spying on him when he is on holiday with his friends, imagining him having sex with other young men or women, remaining fixated as to whether Luc is gay or straight, and even leaving tutoring sessions to use the bathroom so that he can smell Luc's dirty laundry.
Hollinghurst then begins to break the bubbles or desire that Edward has created. Luc becomes more realistic and less idealized. He becomes more human and more mundane. Eventually all the questions Edward has about Luc are answered, or at least many of the questions are answered. Edward begins the painful process of healing the wounds left by obsession as Luc drifts out of his life.
I found the book to be one of the best descriptions of the natural history of obsession since Robert Plant's The Catholic. Obsession is revealed to be a wounding, out of mind experience, from which we only gradually recover. Hollingshurst caught it well in this well written book.
An Exercise in Emotional Provocation.......2000-12-08
The Folding Star was, in my opinion, one of the best books I have ever read. The writing is smooth and flawless, and the everything was beautifully and carefully constructed. Despite the fact that this book is about a controversial topic, homosexuality, I believe that it should be judged by its quality, which is outstanding. What made me enjoy this book the most was the rich variety of emotions that it provoked. Happiness, anxiety, fear, love, hate; they're all in this book, and they are brought about perfectly. The ending, in particular, provokes haunting, mixed emotions that will not be forgotten simply because the book has ended.
Average customer rating:
- Page turner
- exciting, insightful, literate
- superb police procedural with a cleverly interwoven message
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Four to Midnight: A Novel
Scott Flander
Manufacturer: Avon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
General
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ASIN: 0061031704
Release Date: 2004-05-25 |
Book Description
With Four to Midnight, award-winning crime reporter Scott Flander, author of the critically acclaimed novel Sons of the City, returns with a second explosive novel of justice, politics, and race featuring Sergeant Eddie North.
When a black city councilman is badly beaten on a West Philadelphia street and blames two of Eddie's best cops, they deny it. Called to the scene, Eddie -- uncertain of what really happened -- decides to back his men and finds himself accused of a conspiracy to cover up the truth. The media, the politicians, and the public are outraged. And then a man in a black ski mask begins a campaign to assassinate cops.
As Eddie races to learn what was really behind the beating, more trouble erupts. A fellow sergeant has taken advantage of the tension in the city and formed a ring of corrupt officers that includes one of the two cops for whom Eddie is risking everything.
The widening conflict between the police and the black community is mirrored by the battle of cop against cop. And with the stakes so high, there are no winners ... just those strong enough -- and lucky enough -- to survive.
Masterfully plotted and delivered in evocative prose, Four to Midnight is a riveting story of how hard it is to do the right thing in the midst of a raging battle to maintain brotherhood and morality in a city under siege from within.
Customer Reviews:
Page turner.......2003-12-28
I have read many cop stories but this is one of the tops on my list. From start to finish you can not put this thriller down. What makes it especially interesting is that it seems so real especially since I live in the area. The character development is superb and the street imagery is so lifelike. This is a new author for me and I hope he continues to write more great stories such as this one.
exciting, insightful, literate.......2003-07-26
FOUR TO MIDNIGHT is a very unusual police novel. As a good, juicy page-turner, it delivers the goods and then some - Flander's handling of action sequences is particularly exciting, and very nearly cinematic (I'd definitely like to see the movie of this one). But it's also an exceptional portrait of a city and the cultures within it - Philadelphia, its neighborhoods, its citizens and their multiple mindsets are all conveyed intimately and immediately, so that you instantly feel like you know this place and these people. Finally, the writing is quietly brilliant. There are very few great stylists in this genre, but Flander, in this book, announces himself as one of them - he has drawn together plot, theme, character and place seamlessly and masterfully, creating, not only a great read, but a great novel.
superb police procedural with a cleverly interwoven message.......2003-07-08
In Philadelphia, two white police officers Mutt and Roy, call for supervisory help. Sergeant Eddie North arrives only to have African-American Councilman Sonny Knight scream at him to get the two cops away from him. Later, Sonny accuses Mutt and Roy of beating him up and adds Eddie to his list of accusation. Both officers deny ever touching Sonny and Eddie believes them because he knows he is innocent and neither of the policemen on the scene showed any sins of using force, let alone excessive.
However, the brass, the politicians, and the media think otherwise forcing an Internal Affairs investigation. As this scenario further splits a city divided over another controversial case, Eddie tries to learn why Sonny lied, but soon finds he is drowning in a polluted cesspool of corruption, bad cops, and duality racism.
The inquiries made by the IA staff and by Eddie are intelligent and entertaining so that police procedural fans have a powerful enjoyable tale. However, FOUR TO MIDNIGHT is more than another urban police story. Instead the theme focuses on how racism engulfs everyone in a swamp and destroys the innocent and their friendships. Thus the audience receives a superb police procedural with a cleverly interwoven powerful message.
Harriet Klausner
Average customer rating:
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Bruegel, or the Workshop of Dreams: A Novel
Claude-Henri Rocquet
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0226723429 |
Book Description
Claude-Henri Rocquet—poet, playwright, and critic—has marshalled the full range of his talents to create a dazzling historical novel about the artist Peter Bruegel the Elder. To the few facts we have—Bruegel died in 1569 around the age of fifty; he lived in Antwerp and in Brussels; his work was much admired—Rocquet adds his own speculations on the sights, smells, and textures of Bruegel's world, on the artist's innermost feelings and intimate conversations, on his spiritual life and its possible translation on the artist's canvas.
Customer Reviews:
Sometimes I read too much.................2005-03-31
I really wish I could say that I enjoyed this version of the trip Steinbeck and Ricketts took to the Sea of Cortez. I have read everything Steinbeck wrote that I know of, and my copy of the Log was published in 1969. I am not a trained literary critic, but I read a lot, and some things bothered me about this book. There isn't much proofreading, and parts of the narrative seem to conflict with other parts. I'm disappointed that so much negativity is included, because Stienbeck's way of writing and portraying his characters and surroundings is so gentle and romantic; the two styles of telling a story really clashed. I don't want to characterize Mr Enea as crude, since what is ordinary conversation for one may make another wince, but his remarks about Carol Steinbeck don't add anything to this legendary voyage for me. I also would like to say that I discovered that a friend of mine from Monterey knew Capt Tony Berry, and I was able to enjoy several telephone conversations with him about this trip. His recollections were much more interesting. Finally, I know nothing about Dr Lynch; maybe she did us a service in sharing this version with us, but I regret having read it. It sounds as if she sat Enea down and stuck a microphone in his face and printed what came out. It's like grabbing your beer only to find that your buddy used the can for an ashtray. Fictionalized or not, I'll stick with Steinbeck's version, which I consider to be one of the ten best books ever.
Interesting Companion to the Steinbeck/Rickett's Log.......2004-04-10
Sparky Enea, one of the original seven crew members from Steinbeck's Sea of Cortez expedition, wrote this memoire near the end of his life. This short anecdotal book presents the side of the story that Steinbeck did not include in his log. Sparky covers the drinking, camerederie, and apparently frequent visits to the portside brothels. It also covers the sexual tension caused by the lone female passenger, Carol, Steinbeck's then wife. Readers of Steinbeck's log will note that Carol is not even mentioned in Steinbeck's account.
This book is a must read for people interested in Steinbeck's log, as it gives a different perspective on the partially fictionalized Steinbeck/Ricket's Log from the Sea of Cortez.
Book Description
This is a topsy-turvy story of a woman born in prison who led a life of crime and wantonness. Later in life she straightens herself out, grows rich, and lives an honest and penitent life.
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- Apples from the Desert: Selected Stories (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series)
- Are you a Grasshopper? (Backyard Books)
- Atlas of Pediatric Physical Diagnosis
- Baby Mix Me a Drink (Baby Be of Use)
- Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
- By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons
- Candle in the Darkness (Refiner's Fire Series #1)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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May and Amy: A True Story of Family, Forbidden Love, and the Secret Lives of May Gaskell, Her Daughter Amy, and Sir Edward Burne-Jones
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
Lizzie Siddal: Face of the Pre-Raphaelites
The Titled Americans: Three American Sisters and the British Aristocratic World Into Which They Married
Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III
