Words and Worlds

Starred review from May 1, 2019

This wise and wonderful compilation, containing 21 essays from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Lurie (Foreign Affairs), begins by describing the author's years as a young mother and writer: "I had published two children, but my two novels were born dead." Lurie goes on to recall her interest in theater, "a world apart with its own language, history, and culture," and explore the contributions of her contemporaries who are "deliberately producing work that is intended to be taken apart and studied rather than read and enjoyed." Lurie then critically examines original fairy tales in comparison to their Disney versions. The piece "Witches Old and New" provides a compact history of "worshipers of a female deity." Children's literature also falls under Lurie's deft eye with interpretations of the tales of Babar the elephant, Narnia, and Harry Potter. The collection concludes with a look at fashion and the joy of wearing whatever we like best. VERDICT Highly recommended for Lurie's fans and admirers of the essay genre.--Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 4, 2019
The 21 essays assembled here range in length from several paragraphs to a score of pages, but all are stimulating and entertaining in equal measure. After two personal and candid short memoirs about her life as a writer, wife, and mother, novelist Lurie (Familiar Spirits) follows her fancy in selections that touch on a broad range of subjects: a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Jonathan Miller’s celebrated 1974 staging of Hamlet in “What Happened in Hamlet”; an affectionate tribute to Ted (Edward) Gorey, her best friend for decades, in “Edward Gorey”; astute evaluations of Pinocchio, Babar the Elephant, Harry Potter, and other characters from children’s literature; and appraisals of knitting, aprons, zippers, and aspects of fashion that extend her 1981 study The Language of Clothes. Lurie approaches all of her subjects with the acumen of a seasoned critic but frequently draws on her skills as a Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction writer to give shape to her thoughts, as when she wryly describes the circumlocutions in critical papers written by deconstructionists as giving “the impression that their authors are flies struggling in the sticky verbal strands of theoretical discourse.” Lovers of literature and the arts will find this a delightful and rewarding volume. Agent: Melanie Jackson, Melanie Jackson Agency.

May 1, 2019
From people, including the often unsettling Edward Gorey, to places, such as the sexually constricted Radcliffe College of the 1950s, to seminal works of children's literature, like Babar, to the vagaries of attire, from aprons to zippers, Pulitzer Prize-winner Lurie turns her shrewd and appraising eye on all manner of modern life. Hers is a discerning and vigorous intellect, one that can muse about the etymology of the word text and summon the same careful consideration in a scholarly critique of the Harry Potter canon. Lurie is also a wry and perceptive observer, quick to find the endearing traits of people she admires and equally adept at identifying the ironies intrinsic to contemporary circumstances. In this far-reaching compilation of nearly two dozen essays, Lurie displays her deep appreciation for the career she was destined to pursue since her first novel, Love and Friendship (1962), despite false starts and the social constraints of the time. Each entry delights as much as it edifies, revealing endearing and illuminating sides to this prolific and popular author.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2019
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, children's book author, and cultural observer Lurie (Emerita, English/Cornell Univ.; The Language of Houses: How Buildings Speak to Us, 2014, etc.) offers a personal perspective on literature, feminism, fashion, and treasured friendships.Although a few of the essays--e.g., on women's decisions to change their surnames after marriage, the meaning of aprons, or fashion's arcane rules--seem dated and others rather slight, most are engaging. Among the liveliest are the author's recollections of friendships with editor Barbara Epstein, writer and artist Edward Gorey, and poet James Merrill. Lurie met Epstein when both were students at Radcliffe--in the 1940s, Radcliffe women were "poor relations" compared to Harvard men, Lurie recalls in "Their Harvard"--and was impressed at once by her "quiet, often almost invisible brilliance" and her capacious reading. When Epstein became editor at the New York Review of Books, Lurie relied gratefully on both her editorial skill and "remarkable" tact. Also remembered with affection is the "immensely intelligent, perceptive, amusing, inventive, skeptical," and "scarily gifted artist" Gorey, whom Lurie first met at a quirky bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They took excursions to make tombstone rubbings, were involved in the Poets' Theatre of Cambridge, and, later, when both lived in Manhattan, became best friends. Gorey was inspired to write The Doubtful Guest by Lurie's offhand comment that having a young child around all the time "was like having a houseguest who never said anything and never left." Equally warm is Lurie's portrait of Merrill, whom she admired for "how intensely aware he was of language, even in the most casual and banal circumstances." One of the longest, and most captivating, essays, "What Happened in Hamlet," recounts Lurie's experience watching a month of rehearsals as Jonathan Miller directed the play in 1974, with Irene Worth as Gertrude and Peter Eyre as the beleaguered prince. Worth, Lurie writes, even offstage, emoted as if she had an audience of 500. Musings on "Pinocchio," the Babar tales, Harry Potter, and "Rapunzel" stand out among essays on children's books.An appealing miscellany.

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