You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Most critics overlook the literary significance of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's work, focusing instead on biographical, political, and moral interpretations. This examination of Solzhenitsyn's major novels--One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, and August 1914--emphasizes that his writings must be understood within the tradition of Russian literature and the context of Western culture. James M. Curtis provides a detailed analysis of Tolstoy's crucial influence on Solzhenitsyn, and he discusses at length Solzhenitsyn's relationship to Dostoyevsky, Leskov, Chekhov, and Zamyatin. Curtis also demonstrates that a study of Ernest Hemingway (whose books have been enorm...
From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis—a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and whose ingenious films remain as startling, innovative, modern—and irresistible—today as they were when they beguiled audiences almost a century ago. "It is brilliant—I was totally absorbed, couldn't stop reading it and was very sorry when it ended."—Kevin Brownlow It was James Agee who christened Buster Keaton “The Great Stone Face.” Keaton’s face, Agee wrote, "ranked almost with Lincoln’s as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet i...
This innovative book presents some fundamentally new interpretations of the best-known and best-loved classics of Russian literature. It does so by applying to them the latest Western research on creativity and literary theory. Readers will come away from the book with an enhanced understanding of individual works by classic authors such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky as well as of the overall evolution of nineteenth-century Russian literature.
During his lifetime, Spencer Tracy was known as Hollywood's 'actor's actor'. Critics wrote that what Olivier was to theatre, Tracy was to film. Over his career he was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won two. But there has been no substantial, intimate biography of the man, until now. From his earliest days in stock theatre, Tracy was a publicist's trial, guarding his private life fiercely. Most of the people associated closely with him shunned the limelight - notably his wife, his children and the great actress Katharine Hepburn, with whom he had an affair that lasted over 26 years. Although his screen roles often depicted a happy, twinkling Irishman, Tracy struggled with alchoholism to the end, a fact which the studios managed to keep out of the papers. With the help of Tracy's daughter, Susie, and access to previously unseen papers, James Curtis has now produced the definitive biography of a tortured, complex and immensely talented man. The book contains 124 integrated photos, many published for the first time.
This collection examines contemporary children's literature, film, and video games to explore how everyday realities like trauma, disaster, and death impact the experience of childhood in America today. Thus, the book updates childhood studies discourse by offering a more inclusive and realistic definition of childhood in the twenty-first century.
None