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The Gingerbread Rabbit |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0060527684 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
Mary's mother has a surprise for her--a delicious gingerbread rabbit. But the real surprises start when this cookie comes to life! The raisin-eyed rabbit, still uncooked on the counter, bemoans his fate to the paring knife, mixing bowl, and rolling pin, when they warn him that nothing has ever escaped from the kitchen without being eaten. When the rabbit spies Mary's mother, just back from the grocery store, a "giant" with "dozens of tremendous shining white teeth the size of a grizzly bear's," he realizes he hasn't a chance. Much to the mother's surprise, her flat, doughy creation makes a run for it! But she wants the gingerbread rabbit for her daughter so much, she races right after him. Garth Williams, illustrator of Charlotte's Web and The Cricket in Times Square captures the chase perfectly with his... |
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The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate |
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| Author: |
Marjorie Williams |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
1586483633 |
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Washington, D.C., is a city ruled by insiders, and few writers have broken through the social and public politics that govern it as eloquently as Williams. This posthumous collection presents a series of remarkably well-observed and intelligent profiles of the great and minor figures who have made D.C. for the past two decades. Williams, a longtime writer for the Washington Post and Vanity Fair, has a fine eye for telling details—the license plates on a bureaucrat's car, the folds of satin in a dying socialite's dress—but it's more than just details that make Williams's profiles so engaging. Underlying each representation is Williams's ability to make her characters as complicated on the page as they are in real life. It's that same concern that governs the heartbreaking personal pieces in the last... |
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Faust, Part 1: Translated by Randall Jarrell, Vol. 1 |
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| Author: |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0641533462 |
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Book Description
Randall Jarrell's translation of Faust is one of his most important achievements. In 1957 he inscribed Goethe's motto on the first page of his notebook--"Ohne Hast aber ohne Rast" ("Without haste but without rest")--and from then until his death in 1965 he worked on the masterpiece of his "own favorite daemon, dear good great Goethe." His intent was to make the German poetry free, unrhymed poetry in English. He all but finished the job before he died, and the few lines that remained untouched--"Gretchen's Room"--were rendered into English by Robert Lowell. This elegant new edition features numerous beautiful line drawings and jacket lettering by the renowned Czech artist Peter Sís, author of the award-winning books Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei and Tibet: Through the Red Box.
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No Other Book |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0060956380 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
"Most critics," Randall Jarrell wrote in a 1952 essay, "are so domesticated as to seem institutions--as they stand there between reader and writer, so different from either, they remind one of the Wall standing between Pyramus and Thisbe." His complaint was as accurate then as it is now. Yet Jarrell himself had nothing of the literary obstructionist to him. The essays he wrote over the course of three decades--in which he mingled his assessments of poetry and prose with the occasional cri de coeur over the state of American civilization--always escort the reader directly into the inner sanctum of the work at hand. And they do so with such scintillating, comical brilliance that most other criticism seems to pale into testy insignificance. We should be grateful, then, that Brad Leithauser has assembled No Other Book, which... |
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Man Who Loved Children |
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| Author: |
Christina Stead |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0312280440 |
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From Library Journal
Were the critics and the public right in 1940 when they rejected this strange book? Or were later critics right when, in 1968, they "rediscovered" The Man Who Loved Children and dubbed it a modern classic? Given the book's excesses and strengths, it is difficult to make a reasonable literary judgment either way. But simply as a portrait of an extraordinary family, the book probably has no equal. And what a family! A charismatic, egotistical father (Sam) spouts nonstop high-minded rubbish while using playful camaraderie to dominate his seven children. His bitter wife (Henny), overworked and desperate, communicates mostly through screaming tirades. Louie, the sensitive older daughter, agonizes as she witnesses the events that eventually lead to tragedy. Although the larger-than-life domestic scenes may not always be... |
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The Caedmon Poetry Collection CD |
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| Author: |
Caedmon's Audio |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Compact Disc |
| ISBN: |
0694522783 |
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From Library Journal
No matter how inspired an actor's reading of poetry might be, there's simply no substitute for hearing a poet read his or her own work. Even if the rendition itself is far from optimal, we hear the cadences, the emotion, and the line breaks exactly as the poem was intended. Since the early 1950s, Caedmon has been the unrivaled leader in spoken-word records and tapes. Though many of these performances are unfortunately out of print now, these three CDs give a taste of things past and, hopefully, to come. And with all but six of these 35 poets now dead, this is one of the few places we can hear the voices of William Butler Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Carl Sandburg, W.H. Auden, Conrad Aiken, Marianne Moore, Stephen Spender, Robert Graves, Edith Sitwell, Wallace Stevens, and the like. T.S. Eliot reads "The... |
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Remembering Randall |
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| Author: |
Mary Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0061180130 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
In the years since his death in 1965, Randall Jarrell has inspired a wealth of tributes. Robert Lowell and John Berryman commemorated their friend and fellow poet in verse, while a lovely 1967 festschrift included contributions by the likes of Hannah Arendt, Alfred Kazin, Marianne Moore, Maurice Sendak, and Elizabeth Bishop (who recalled that Jarrell "always seemed more alive than other people, as if constantly tuned up to the concert pitch that most people, including poets, can maintain only for short and fortunate stretches.") Still, none of these homages have quite the intensity or immediacy of Mary Jarrell's Remembering Randall. The author was married, after all, to her subject. And as she relates, their relationship involved a very high level of playful symbiosis: To be married to Randall was to be encapsulated... |
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Animal Family |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0062059041 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
"Once upon a time, long, long ago, where the forest runs down to the ocean, a hunter lived all alone in a house made of logs he had chopped for himself and shingles he had split for himself." These words ease the reader into the elegant, dreamlike world of Randall Jarrell's Newbery Honor book The Animal Family. One night, the lonely hunter hears the singing of a mermaid, and because "he himself was as patient as an animal," the mermaid learns to trust him, speaking to him in a voice like the water. In time they teach each other their languages, with many amusing exchanges occurring as the hunter tries to teach his new friend terrestrial words and concepts. The hunter explains, "The house is a big wooden thing ... that you stay inside at night or when it rains." "Why?" she asks.... |
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The Bat-Poet |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0062050842 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
Randall Jarrell's The Bat-Poet is the story of an artist. Although the bat-poet may look like a furry mouse with wings, he swells with an artistic sensibility. One day, he discovers how amazing it is to stay awake during daylight hours, exploring things mostly unseen by standard, nocturnal bats. But when he tries to get his bat friends to stay awake with him, they say, "Day's to sleep in." And so the sensitive bat-poet is left alone to embrace the wonders of the day, including the fascinating activities of the possums, squirrels, chipmunks, and especially the mockingbird. The bat-poet attempts to sing a song like the mockingbird's, "But when he tried, his high notes were all high and the notes in between were all high," so he imitates the mockingbird's words instead, and concocts poetry about how the sun... |
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The Animal Family |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0062050885 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Review
"Once upon a time, long, long ago, where the forest runs down to the ocean, a hunter lived all alone in a house made of logs he had chopped for himself and shingles he had split for himself." These words ease the reader into the elegant, dreamlike world of Randall Jarrell's Newbery Honor book The Animal Family. One night, the lonely hunter hears the singing of a mermaid, and because "he himself was as patient as an animal," the mermaid learns to trust him, speaking to him in a voice like the water. In time they teach each other their languages, with many amusing exchanges occurring as the hunter tries to teach his new friend terrestrial words and concepts. The hunter explains, "The house is a big wooden thing ... that you stay inside at night or when it rains." "Why?" she asks.... |
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The Gingerbread Rabbit |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0060533021 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
Mary's mother has a surprise for her--a delicious gingerbread rabbit. But the real surprises start when this cookie comes to life! The raisin-eyed rabbit, still uncooked on the counter, bemoans his fate to the paring knife, mixing bowl, and rolling pin, when they warn him that nothing has ever escaped from the kitchen without being eaten. When the rabbit spies Mary's mother, just back from the grocery store, a "giant" with "dozens of tremendous shining white teeth the size of a grizzly bear's," he realizes he hasn't a chance. Much to the mother's surprise, her flat, doughy creation makes a run for it! But she wants the gingerbread rabbit for her daughter so much, she races right after him. Garth Williams, illustrator of Charlotte's Web and The Cricket in Times Square captures the chase perfectly with his... |
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Randall Jarrell's Letters: An Autobiographical and Literary Selection |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0813921538 |
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| Availability: |
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Washington Post Book World
"Witty, often brilliantly perceptive, often touching, usually funny"
Boston Globe
"[Jarrell] was Matthew Arnold at the wheel of an MG, tach up, top down, the wind in his literary hair."
See all Editorial Reviews
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Pictures from an Institution: A Comedy |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0226393747 |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
Randall Jarrell's only novel features a Bryn Mawr-like women's college in which whispers and verbal shivs and sycophancy rule. "Half the campus was designed by Bottom the Weaver, half by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Benton had been endowed with one to begin with, and had smiled and sweated and spoken for the other." The institution's star-struck head is a Clintonesque young man particularly adept at raising money in Hollywood and who "wanted you to like him, he wanted everybody to like him--it was part of being a president; but talking all the time was too." Unfortunately, his new creative-writing hire only likes him the first time they meet. Thenceforth, she not only stirs things up but skewers them as well. When the book was first published in 1954, most considered Gertrude Johnson to be a... |
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Bat-Poet |
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| Author: |
Randall Jarrell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
006205905X |
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| Availability: |
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Book Review
Randall Jarrell's The Bat-Poet is the story of an artist. Although the bat-poet may look like a furry mouse with wings, he swells with an artistic sensibility. One day, he discovers how amazing it is to stay awake during daylight hours, exploring things mostly unseen by standard, nocturnal bats. But when he tries to get his bat friends to stay awake with him, they say, "Day's to sleep in." And so the sensitive bat-poet is left alone to embrace the wonders of the day, including the fascinating activities of the possums, squirrels, chipmunks, and especially the mockingbird. The bat-poet attempts to sing a song like the mockingbird's, "But when he tried, his high notes were all high and the notes in between were all high," so he imitates the mockingbird's words instead, and concocts poetry about how the sun... |
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Randall Jarrell and His Age |
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| Author: |
Stephen Burt |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0231125941 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Ordinarily, a book-length study of an American poet-critic almost 40 years dead isn't news, unless the poet-critic is T.S. Eliot. Yet this monograph from Burt is an exception. Burt (Popular Music) is one of the leading poet-critics of his own emerging generation, turning out an astonishing amount of terrific review-based criticism in places like the TLS and New York Times from his perch as an assistant professor of English at Mac lester College in St. Paul, Minn. His project here is nothing less than the full-scale rehabilitation of Jarrell (1914-1965), who is best remembered for Poetry and the Age (1953), a series of essays that changed the way his contemporaries read Robert Frost (and told them how to read Robert Lowell, among other poets); his best-known poem is the searing "90 North," comparing... |
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The Wounded Surgeon: Confession and Transformation in Six American Poets (Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, Delmore Schwartz and Sylvia Plath) |
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| Author: |
Adam Kirsch |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0393051978 |
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From Publishers Weekly
The "great constellation" of writers Kirsch discusses have been praised as the first wave of "confessional" poets, but he finds this received opinion misguided. What makes these poets special, he argues, is not that they spilled their emotional guts on the page, but the ways in which they transformed these personal experiences into art: "their primary motive was aesthetic," he says. Kirsch, book critic for the New York Sun, emphasizes the "deliberate manipulation of tone and language" in poems that some readers have mistaken for straightforward autobiographical expressions, particularly in discussing Lowell (whom he considers the best American poet born in the last century). Such discussion sets the tone for the later chapters; the sameness of the thesis is mitigated by very close readings of each poet's verse in... |
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