The Fame Lunches

The Fame Lunches
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On Wounded Icons, Money, Sex, the Brontës, and the Importance of Handbags

مشارکت: عنوان و توضیح کوتاه هر کتاب را ترجمه کنید این ترجمه بعد از تایید با نام شما در سایت نمایش داده خواهد شد.
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فرمت کتاب

ebook

تاریخ انتشار

2014

نویسنده

Daphne Merkin

شابک

9780374711924
  • اطلاعات
  • نقد و بررسی
  • دیدگاه کاربران
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نقد و بررسی

Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from July 21, 2014
For her first essay collection in more than 15 years, noted literary and cultural critic Merkin (Dreaming of Hitler: Passions and Provocations) assembles a diverse array of work, most of it previously published. Included are profiles of Richard Burton, Bruno Bettelheim, Mike Tyson, and Cate Blanchett, as well as essays on Anne Carson’s “unclassifiable” poetry, the books of W.G. Sebald, and the resiliency of Jean Rhys (who “speaks to the inner bag lady in all of us”). The keenly perceptive Merkin adroitly tackles high and low culture—the troubled trajectory of the women’s movement and the meaning of lip gloss, the fabled Bloomsbury Circle and the “current prima-donna status” of pets. Drawn to “fragile sorts” because she “understood the desolation that drove them,” her critiques and profiles pinpoint her subjects’ foibles while remaining deeply empathetic. Sensitive to how hard it is to keep one’s bearings in our unmoored, consumerist society, she is refreshingly candid about her anxieties, writing of her family’s “pathological discretion” on the subject of its wealth, her ambivalence about her Orthodox Jewish upbringing, and her quest for the perfect handbag. No matter what topic, readers will be treated to mesmerizing prose, lively wit, and penetrating analysis; the collection is a joy to read. Agent: Markus Hoffmann, Regal Literary.



Kirkus

July 1, 2014
A veteran essayist for the New Yorker and numerous other significant publications returns with an eclectic collection of pieces, all of which feature her unique style and voice.Most of Merkin's (Dreaming of Hitler: Passions and Provocations, 1997, etc.) pieces date from the previous decade, though she offers one from 1980 about Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (she calls him "preeminently the poet of withdrawn promise"). Merkin includes book reviews, reflections on the sad stories of sadder celebrities (Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson and others), self-revelatory reflections on personal appearance (lip gloss, pedicures), some accounts of her personal obsessions (the Bloomsbury Group, the Brontes), tributes to writers she's admired (poet Anne Carson, W.G. Sebald, John Updike), and thoughts about fashion and some eminent actresses (Liv Ullman, Diane Keaton, Cate Blanchett). Merkin's style is inevitably exploratory-these are "essays" in the word's literal sense. Like Montaigne, she writes to figure something out, not because she's already figured it out. She also has a fondness for the parenthetical observation; in her piece about Virginia Woolf, she has some lengthy examples of this-appropriate, for Woolf herself loved them. Some of Merkin's essays are aimed directly at women (though curious men-and/or ignorant ones-will surely find them informative): a piece about handbags (she's bought and returned many), another on flirting, another about having male gay friends. One of her most touching essays is about the rise and fall of Betty Friedan, whom Merkin credits for lighting the fuse on the women's movement. However, according to the author, Friedan's personal flaws-and the rise of the more telegenic Gloria Steinem-occasioned her fall from power. Throughout, Merkin also comments in a variety of ways about her own appearance-her physical virtues, the effects of aging and the broken promises to herself.Essays that go down like candy but nourish like health food.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



Library Journal

March 15, 2014
A former staff writer for "The New Yorker", cultural critic Merkin looks at celebrity in our relentlessly techno-linked world, grounding her discussion of how much we obsess about sex, money, and gorgeousness with context ranging from the Bronte sisters to Brando's appeal. Smart readers will enjoy.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.




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