|
Showing 1 - 16 of
16 matches in All Departments
Finalist, ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards 2012, Performing
Arts and Music (Adult Non-Fiction) Brian Wilson is a musical
genius. Ever since British press agent Derek Taylor launched a
publicity campaign with that theme to promote the landmark LP Pet
Sounds in 1966, some variation of that claim has been obligatory
when discussing the significance of the Beach Boys' founder and
chief composer. Originally designed to liberate Wilson from his
outmoded image as a purveyor of sun-and-surf teen pop so the
symphonic sophistication of his music might be properly
appreciated, the assertion has been repeated so often in the
forty-plus years since as to render it virtually meaningless.
Indeed, if anything, the label today seems an albatross around the
man's neck, inasmuch as Wilson's slow-but-steady reemergence as a
working musician since 1998 after three decades of mental illness
and drug abuse, has been freighted with expectations that he again
produce something as epochal as "Good Vibrations" to justify the
adoration he inspires in impassioned defenders. Brian Wilson
interrogates this and other paradigms that stymie critical
appreciation of Wilson's work both with the Beach Boys and as a
solo artist. This is the first study of Wilson to eschew chronology
for a topical organization that allows discussion of lyrical themes
and musical motifs outside of any prejudicial presumptions about
their place in the trajectory of his career. The chapter on lyrics
explores questions of quality, asking why the words to Wilson's
songs are often considered a detriment, before surveying such
tendencies as melancholy and introspection, the conceit of
childlike wisdom, his depiction of women, and Americana/nostalgia.
The section on music focuses on his falsetto, the famous harmonies,
the peculiar whiteness of the Beach Boys' sound, as well as song
structure. A final chapter on iconicity asks how rock criticism's
investment in auteurship both maintains and limits his reputation.
Finally, Curnutt examines what Brian Wilson means to his most
fervent fans. Together, these issues emphasize the often overlooked
point that, despite his status as a "living legend," Brian Wilson
does not always fit neatly into the paradigms of taste and value by
which critics grant certain artists entry into the pantheon of pop
and rock importance.
During his Roaring Twenties heyday, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote three
stories about the belles of Tarleton, Georgia, a setting readers
recognized as a thinly veiled version of his wife Zelda Sayre's
hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. In different ways, the heroines of
these tales—Sally Carol Happer in "The Ice Palace," Nancy Lamar
in "The Jelly-Bean," and Allie Calhoun in "The Last of the
Belles"—rebel against Southern expectations of women, revel in
the newfound freedoms young people enjoyed at the outset of the
modern age, and ultimately discover that home is far harder to run
away from than they ever expected. Remarkably, although these minor
masterpieces have long been regarded as among the very best of the
160-plus short stories Fitzgerald published during his short life,
the stories have never (until now) been published as a trio.
Gathered here to commemorate the centennial of both Scott and
Zelda's 1920 marriage and the beginning of the Jazz Age they
symbolize, All of the Belles captures all the winsome qualities
readers love about F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing: the keen
observation of manners, the comic insights, the lyricism, and the
poignant, powerful sense of loss.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, has
frequently been dismissed as an outlier and curiosity in his
oeuvre, a transitional work from the coming-of-age plot of This
Side of Paradise to the masterful critique of American aspiration
in The Great Gatsby The Beautiful and Damned belongs to a genre
that is widely misunderstood, the "bright young things" novel in
which spoiled and wealthy characters succumb to decay because of
their privilege and lack of purpose. Set between 1913 and 1922,
Fitzgerald's longest novel touches on many of the decisive issues
that mark the passage from the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era
into the Jazz Age: conspicuous consumption, income inequality,
yellow journalism, the Great War, the rise of the movie industry,
automobile travel, Wall Street stock scams, immigration and
xenophobia, and the fixation with youth and aging. Published to
coincide with the novel's centennial in 2022, this collection
approaches The Beautiful and Damned for its insights more than its
faults. Prominent Fitzgerald scholars analyze major themes and
reveal unappreciated issues with attention to history, biography,
literary influence, gender studies, and narratology. While
acknowledging the novel's shortcomings, the essayists illustrate
that The Beautiful and Damned has much more to say about its milieu
than previously recognized. This collection provides a guide for
understanding Fitzgerald's aims while demonstrating the richness of
ideas that this novel explores, alongside the anxieties and
ambitions that reverberate within it.
Huckleberry Finn, Anna Karenina, Harry Potter, Hester
Prynne...these are just a handful of remarkable characters to be
found in literature, but of course, the list of memorable
characters is virtually endless! But why ponder which of these
creations are the greatest? More than just a topic to debate with
friends, the greatest characters from fiction help readers
comprehend history, culture, politics, and even their own place in
today's world. Despite our reliance on television, film, and
technology, it is literature's great characters that create and
reinforce popular culture, informing us again and again about
society and ourselves. In The 100 Greatest Literary Characters,
three scholars of literature identify the most significant figures
in fiction published over the last several centuries. From Jay
Gatsby to Jean Valjean, the characters profiled here represent a
wide array of storytelling, and the authors explore each one's
significance at the time they were created as well as their
relevance today. Included in this volume are characters from
literature produced around the world, such as Aladdin, James Bond,
Holden Caulfield, Hercule Poirot, Don Quixote, Lisbeth Salander,
Ebenezer Scrooge, and Yuri Zhivago. Readers of this volume will
find their beloved literary figures, learn about forgotten gems, or
discover deserving choices pulled from history's dustbin. Providing
insights into how literature shapes and molds culture via these
fabricated figures, The 100 Greatest Literary Characters will
appeal to literature lovers around the globe.
Brian Wilson is a genius. Ever since British press agent Derek
Taylor launched a publicity campaign with that theme to promote the
landmark LP Pet Sounds in 1966, some variation of that claim has
been obligatory when discussing the significance of the Beach Boys'
founder and chief composer. Originally designed to liberate Wilson
from his outmoded image as a purveyor of sun-and-surf teen pop so
the symphonic sophistication of his music might be properly
appreciated, the assertion has been repeated so often in the
forty-plus years since as to render it virtually meaningless.
Indeed, if anything, the label today seems an albatross around the
man's neck, inasmuch as Wilson's slow-but-steady reemergence as a
working musician since the mid-nineties after three decades of
mental illness and drug abuse, has been freighted with expectations
that he again produce something as epochal as "Good Vibrations" to
justify the adoration he inspires in impassioned defenders. Brian
Wilson interrogates this and other paradigms that stymie critical
appreciation of Wilson's work both with the Beach Boys and as a
solo artist.This is the first study of Wilson to eschew chronology
for a topical organization that allows discussion of lyrical themes
and musical motifs outside of any prejudicial presumptions about
their place in the trajectory of his career. The chapter on lyrics
explores questions of quality, asking why the words to Wilson's
songs are often considered a detriment, before surveying such
tendencies as melancholy and introspection, the conceit of
childlike wisdom, his depiction of women, and Americana/nostalgia.
The section on music focuses on his falsetto, the famous harmonies,
the peculiar whiteness of the Beach Boys' sound, as well as song
structure. A final chapter on iconicity asks how rock criticism's
investment in auteurship both maintains and limits his reputation.
Finally, Curnutt examines what Brian Wilson means to his most
fervent fans. Together, these issues emphasize the often overlooked
point that, despite his status as a "living legend," Brian Wilson
does not always fit neatly into the paradigms of taste and value by
which critics grant certain artists entry into the pantheon of pop
and rock importance.
'Lie to me by the moonlight. Do a fabulous story.' F. Scott
Fitzgerald's first story collection, Flappers and Philosophers,
appeared in 1920 on the heels of his debut novel, This Side of
Paradise, and immediately established him as a master of popular
fiction. Love stories such as 'The Offshore Pirate' and 'Head and
Shoulders' capture the spectacle and fantasy of the Jazz Age,
celebrating that modern icon of feminine self-possession, the
flapper, while comedies of manner like 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair' and
'The Ice Palace' showcase Fitzgerald's eye for humour. In addition
to these four classic tales, which first appeared in The Saturday
Evening Post , this edition highlights the author's proficiency
with other crowd-pleasing story types: from Gothic fiction ('The
Cut-Glass Bowl') to didactic moral stories ('The Four Fists'), from
satire ('Dalyrimple Goes Wrong') to spiritual quests
('Benediction'), Fitzgerald tried his hand at many genres--and
succeeded at all.
|
Alabama Noir (Hardcover)
Don Noble; Contributions by Ace Atkins, Tom Franklin, Anita Miller Garner, Suzanne Hudson, …
|
R986
R838
Discovery Miles 8 380
Save R148 (15%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Conventional wisdom holds that Hemingway's Key West years were
among his least productive, and many are dismissive of the works he
produced during that time. In this collection, several leading
Hemingway scholars focus on his overlooked short stories and
essays, especially those written for Esquire from 1933 to 1936.
They demonstrate how the island inspired some of his most vivid
work and discuss how the ""Hemingway industry"" continues to
endure.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, has
frequently been dismissed as an outlier and curiosity in his
oeuvre, a transitional work from the coming-of-age plot of This
Side of Paradise to the masterful critique of American aspiration
in The Great Gatsby. The Beautiful and Damned belongs to a genre
that is widely misunderstood, the "bright young things" novel in
which spoiled and wealthy characters succumb to decay because of
their privilege and lack of purpose. Set between 1913 and 1922,
Fitzgerald's longest novel touches on many of the decisive issues
that mark the passage from the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era
into the Jazz Age: conspicuous consumption, income inequality,
yellow journalism, the Great War, the rise of the movie industry,
automobile travel, Wall Street stock scams, immigration and
xenophobia, and the fixation with youth and aging. Published to
coincide with the novel's centennial in 2022, this collection
approaches The Beautiful and Damned for its insights more than its
faults. Prominent Fitzgerald scholars analyze major themes and
reveal unappreciated issues with attention to history, biography,
literary influence, gender studies, and narratology. While
acknowledging the novel's shortcomings, the essayists illustrate
that The Beautiful and Damned has much more to say about its milieu
than previously recognized. This collection provides a guide for
understanding Fitzgerald's aims while demonstrating the richness of
ideas that this novel explores, alongside the anxieties and
ambitions that reverberate within it.
The Romance of Regionalism in the Work of F. Scott and Zelda
Fitzgerald: The South Side of Paradise explores resonances of
"Southernness" in works by American culture's leading literary
couple. At the height of their fame, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
dramatized their relationship as a romance of regionalism, as the
charming tale of a Northern man wooing a Southern belle. Their
writing exposes deeper sectional conflicts, however: from the
seemingly unexorcisable fixation with the Civil War and the
historical revisionism of the Lost Cause to popular culture's
depiction of the South as an artistically deprived, economically
broken backwater, the couple challenged early twentieth-century
stereotypes of life below the Mason-Dixon line. From their most
famous efforts (The Great Gatsby and Save Me the Waltz) to their
more overlooked and obscure (Scott's 1932 story "Family in the
Wind," Zelda's "The Iceberg," published in 1918 before she even met
her husband), Scott and Zelda returned obsessively to the
challenges of defining Southern identity in a country in which
"going south" meant decay and dissolution. Contributors to this
volume tackle a range of Southern topics, including belle culture,
the picturesque and the Gothic, Confederate commemoration and race
relations, and regional reconciliation. As the collection
demonstrates, the Fitzgeralds' fortuitous meeting in Montgomery,
Alabama, in 1918 sparked a Southern renascence in miniature.
The subject of endless biographies, fictional depictions, and
critical debate, Ernest Hemingway continues to command attention in
popular culture and in literary studies. He remains both a
definitive stylist of twentieth-century literature and a case study
in what happens to an artist consumed by the spectacle of
celebrity. The New Hemingway Studies examines how two decades of
new-millennium scholarship confirm his continued relevance to an
era that, on the surface, appears so distinct from his-one defined
by digital realms, ecological anxiety, and globalization. It
explores the various sources (print, archival, digital, and other)
through which critics access Hemingway. Highlighting the latest
critical trends, the contributors to this volume demonstrate how
Hemingway's remarkably durable stories, novels, and essays have
served as a lens for understanding preeminent concerns in our own
time, including paranoia, trauma, iconicity, and racial, sexual,
and national identities.
Presenting the first interdisciplinary consideration of his
political thought, Updike and Politics: New Considerations
establishes a new scholarly foundation for assessing one of the
most recognized and significant American writers of the post-1945
period. This book brings together a diverse group of American and
international scholars, including contributors from Japan, India,
Israel, and Europe. Like Updike himself, the collection canvases a
wide range of topics, including Updike's too often overlooked
poetry and his single play. Its essays deal with not only political
themes such as the traditional aspects of power, rights, equality,
justice, or violence but also the more divisive elements in
Updike's work like race, gender, imperialism, hegemony, and
technology. Ultimately, the book reveals how Updike's immense body
of work illuminates the central political questions and problems
that troubled American culture during the second half of the
twentieth century as well as the opening decade of the new
millennium.
Although F. Scott Fitzgerald remains one of the most recognizable
literary figures of the twentieth century, his legendary life -
including his tempestuous romance with his wife and muse Zelda -
continues to overshadow his art. However glamorous his image as the
poet laureate of the 1920s, he was first and foremost a great
writer with a gift for fluid, elegant prose. This introduction
reminds readers why Fitzgerald deserves his preeminent place in
literary history. It discusses not only his best-known works, The
Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934), but the full
scope of his output, including his other novels and his short
stories. This book introduces new readers and students of
Fitzgerald to his trademark themes, his memorable characters, his
significant plots, the literary modes and genres from which he
borrowed, and his inimitable style.
From her early classic "Three Lives" to her best-selling
"Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" to "Brewsie and Willie, " a
loving tribute to the G.I.s who adored her, Gertrude Stein's work
was among the most controversial of the modernist movement.
Alternately praised and derided, emulated and ridiculed, Stein was
as unique a celebrity as the mass media of the early 20th century
ever produced. As her influence spread through the lost generation
she nurtured, critics from Edmund Wilson to confidant Carl Van
Vechten defended her experimentation against the slings and arrows
of the literary establishment. At the same time, Stein found
herself parodied and caricatured from the pages of the "New York
Sun" to the "New Yorker." Her reputation solidified only after her
1946 death from cancer prompted a series of reminiscences and
reestimations from the "Chicago Tribune" to the "Saturday
Review."
While previous collections of Stein criticism typically reprint
commentary by her most ardent supporters, this study reconstructs
her precarious position in the eyes of American newspaper and
magazine columnists and is thus a guide to her critical reception.
While including quintessential pieces on Stein by Carl Van Vechten,
William Carlos Williams, and Katherine Anne Porter, this collection
also includes previously obscure estimations from contemporaries
such as H. L. Mencken, Mina Loy, and Conrad Aiken. The book borrows
from a range of sources--from leading literary outlets such as the
"New Yorker" to a number of regional newspapers. Some 75% of the
material in the volume has never before been reprinted.
Although F. Scott Fitzgerald remains one of the most recognizable
literary figures of the twentieth century, his legendary life -
including his tempestuous romance with his wife and muse Zelda -
continues to overshadow his art. However glamorous his image as the
poet laureate of the 1920s, he was first and foremost a great
writer with a gift for fluid, elegant prose. This introduction
reminds readers why Fitzgerald deserves his preeminent place in
literary history. It discusses not only his best-known works, The
Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934), but the full
scope of his output, including his other novels and his short
stories. This book introduces new readers and students of
Fitzgerald to his trademark themes, his memorable characters, his
significant plots, the literary modes and genres from which he
borrowed, and his inimitable style.
Although perceived in his own day as a lightweight chronicler of
1920s trends and fads, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is now
recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth
century. Whether for his classic novels (The Great Gatsby, Tender
is the Night), his frequently anthologized short stories ("Babylon
Revisited," "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"), or his searing essays of
personal examination (The Crack-Up), Fitzgerald is rightly
celebrated as a master stylist who plumbs the depths of love, loss,
and longing. Unfortunately, much of the interest in Fitzgerald has
focused on biographical concerns, including his meteoric rise to
fame, his tempestuous marriage to quintessential flapper Zelda
Sayre, his rivalry with Ernest Hemingway, and his tragic descent
into alcoholism and depression. The resulting, somewhat distorted,
image of Fitzgerald has been that of as a self-destructive literary
playboy. Even scholarly treatments of the author have tended to
depict him as a mere spokesman for the Lost Generation, a symbol of
the excesses of his era, without properly appreciating the range of
his writing or his intellect. This volume of historically minded,
newly commissioned essays looks beyond the Jazz Age facade to
topics that reveal how Fitzgerald's work both illumines and
challenges conceptions of his milieu. Studies of the literary
marketplace of the 1920s, the influence of public intellectuals
such as Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken, film and its treatment
of the New Woman, and the aftereffects of World War I all document
the depth and breadth of Fitzgerald's thinking.
|
|