Bamboo
Essays and Criticism
کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
September 3, 2007
This noteworthy compendium of British writer Boyd's nonfiction work of the last 25 years is a cornucopia of critical opinion, memoir and social commentary. In addition to their insights on contemporary culture, many of these pieces illuminate aspects of Boyd's novels and short stories. In fact, Boyd (A Good Man in Africa
) expresses surprise about how much autobiographical material has “crept into” his work. While some of his subjects will be of less interest to American than British readers, his critical essays on such icons as Woody Allen, Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut, his reflections on the New York scene, American art and a Georgia town called Tallapoosa are refreshing opinions from a foreigner's perspective. He owns up to enjoying the hoax he perpetrated by inventing and assessing the paintings of a fictitious artist called Nat Tate, and there are lively accounts of how the duke and duchess of Windsor became characters in his novel Any Human Heart
. Certain preoccupations become evident. No less than seven essays on Evelyn Waugh reflect Boyd's confessed “obsession” with and ambivalence toward the man and his work. At 500-plus pages, this volume is perfect for a bedside table, to be read for sustained excellence of observation and lucidity of prose.
November 1, 2007
As a novelist, Boyd revels in dissolving the line between the invented and the real. In his nonfiction, he writes with a novelists high-voltage creativity, as is evident in this encompassing collection of personal and critical essays spanning the last quarter-century. Boyd himself marvels over just how many essays he has written while also producing his nine novels and many short stories and screenplays. He is an impish and charming memoirist and evinces a genuine passion for criticism. Boyd writes incisively about movies and television, and in his incandescent literary essays, he vividly profiles mentors Evelyn Waugh and Cyril Connolly and keenly assesses the work of Dickens, Chekhov, and Vonnegut. Boyds art essays are buoyant, including pieces on Bonnard, Franz Kline, and Howard Hodgkin, and Boyd devotees will relish the wry true story of the fictitious artist featured in Boyds Nat Tate: An American Artist (1998), which was misconstrued as a hoax. This far-roaming collections primary draw is for devoted fans of Boyds fiction, but essay lovers will find that that he is a knowledgeable and cheerfully acerbic practitioner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)
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