Sam Lord
03-04-2011, 05:18 PM
New York Times Book Review 3/3/11
Henry Kissinger reviews "Bismark A Life" by Jonathan Steinberg and describes it as "the best study of its subject in the English language.
Liesl Schillinger reviews "The Free World" a first novel by David Bezmozgis set amongst Soviet emigres in Rome in 1978. "At the centre of The Free World are three generations of the Krasnasky family, who have made a grueling journey form Latvia to Ukraine to Czechslovakia to Austria to Italy. In Rome, they jostle for months among other emigres, scrabbling for housing, resources and contacts as they wait for visas to Australia, America or Canada. " Positive review.
Meghan O'Rourke reviews "The Angry Muse" by the Australian poet Les Murray. A memoir of his depression that includes 24 poems called the "Black Dog" poems that "deal squarely either with his depression or with the subterranean anger he believes led to it." The book, according to O'Rourke, ".. lingers in the mind. You might even feel that its oversimplifications are its most articulate moments, when we understand just how hard it is to translate pain into something ordered and meaningful."
Lesley Downer reviews "Message from an unknown Chinese mother" by Xinran. It is, apparently, "a shocking account of family planning attitudes and practices in China".
Thomas Mallon reviews "You think that's bad" a collection of short "historical" stories by Jim Shepard. "His fine contrivances of cerebration and feeling can remind one of Richard Powers at his best. And his preference for historical quests, for real people's big gestures, may help keep American short fiction from falling asleep in the snug little precints of its own subject matter."
Adam Hochschild reviews "Dancing in the glory of monsters; The collapse of the Congo and the Great war of Africa." by Jason K. Stearns, an exploration of why Congo has been left to its cycle of wars and massacres. "The task facing anyone who tries to tell this story is formibable, but Stearns by and large rises to it."
Jess Row reviews "All the time in the world", selected short fiction by E.L. Doctorow. "It's a truism to say that the story as a form is devoted to loneliness and alienation - "people in sone sort of contest with the prevailing world", as Doctorow puts it here - but that may be the best explanation for why these stories so often fail. Doctorow's novels tend to follow a deductive logic, beginning with the great themes of an era (or simply with a set of historical facts) and then dramatising them in an interwoven ensemble of characters. Without a substantial dose of irony, short stories don't work that way; the heavy handedness of the novelist smashes them flat. As a title All the time in the world is, in this sense, exactly wrong; these stories never have the breadth and breath - the expansiveness of novelistic time - they need."
Henry Kissinger reviews "Bismark A Life" by Jonathan Steinberg and describes it as "the best study of its subject in the English language.
Liesl Schillinger reviews "The Free World" a first novel by David Bezmozgis set amongst Soviet emigres in Rome in 1978. "At the centre of The Free World are three generations of the Krasnasky family, who have made a grueling journey form Latvia to Ukraine to Czechslovakia to Austria to Italy. In Rome, they jostle for months among other emigres, scrabbling for housing, resources and contacts as they wait for visas to Australia, America or Canada. " Positive review.
Meghan O'Rourke reviews "The Angry Muse" by the Australian poet Les Murray. A memoir of his depression that includes 24 poems called the "Black Dog" poems that "deal squarely either with his depression or with the subterranean anger he believes led to it." The book, according to O'Rourke, ".. lingers in the mind. You might even feel that its oversimplifications are its most articulate moments, when we understand just how hard it is to translate pain into something ordered and meaningful."
Lesley Downer reviews "Message from an unknown Chinese mother" by Xinran. It is, apparently, "a shocking account of family planning attitudes and practices in China".
Thomas Mallon reviews "You think that's bad" a collection of short "historical" stories by Jim Shepard. "His fine contrivances of cerebration and feeling can remind one of Richard Powers at his best. And his preference for historical quests, for real people's big gestures, may help keep American short fiction from falling asleep in the snug little precints of its own subject matter."
Adam Hochschild reviews "Dancing in the glory of monsters; The collapse of the Congo and the Great war of Africa." by Jason K. Stearns, an exploration of why Congo has been left to its cycle of wars and massacres. "The task facing anyone who tries to tell this story is formibable, but Stearns by and large rises to it."
Jess Row reviews "All the time in the world", selected short fiction by E.L. Doctorow. "It's a truism to say that the story as a form is devoted to loneliness and alienation - "people in sone sort of contest with the prevailing world", as Doctorow puts it here - but that may be the best explanation for why these stories so often fail. Doctorow's novels tend to follow a deductive logic, beginning with the great themes of an era (or simply with a set of historical facts) and then dramatising them in an interwoven ensemble of characters. Without a substantial dose of irony, short stories don't work that way; the heavy handedness of the novelist smashes them flat. As a title All the time in the world is, in this sense, exactly wrong; these stories never have the breadth and breath - the expansiveness of novelistic time - they need."