<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: european son
Review: Delmore Schwartz has unfortunately been forgotten by most people today, and that is a great shame. (An example of this is that Schwartz's student John Berryman has his own entry in the online edition of Encarta; Delmore does not.) I first came into contact with his work in 9th grade, when a teacher suggested I read the Schwartz poem, "The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me" -- one of his masterpieces, collected in "Summer Knowledge." Later, around the time I read this book,there was a brief surge in Delmore interest with the publication of Jame Atlas' biography of Schwartz and Saul Bellow's "Humboldts Gift", the title character being based on Delmore. Fortunately, this led to reprinting of much of his work. Sadly, it didn't lead to continued general interest. The title story alone is reason enough to buy "In Dreams..." The brilliant device of having the main character watching a movie of his parents courtship, is was way ahead of its time. The end of the story will linger in your mind. It's heartbreaking and scary and funny. Schwartz's work deserves a wider audience. I promise you will not be dissapointed if you take the time to read him. The only poet I know who has both a Berryman "Dream Song" and a Lou Reed song dedicated to him can't be too bad, can he?
Rating:
Summary: Your "Responsibility" to Find Great Literature Ends Here
Review: Five of the stories here are flat-out masterpieces ("In Dreams;" "The World is a Wedding;" "New Year's Eve;" "The Commencement Address;" and "The Track Meet"), while the other 3 are extremely well done, if not as wholly satisfying. This collection should be required reading in every contemporary lit. class. It's got everything: all the themes of struggle, frustration and defeat, responsibility, ambition, all the thoughts that men have thought in every age, and captures its era so perfectly and completely I am in awe. Even though the stories are, in some ways similar (especially "In Dreams," "The Commencement Address," and "The Track Meet"), they are utterly original, beautiful, hallucinatory, profound, funny and heartbreaking. Schwartz -- that great voice speaking out against the crowd -- deserves to be heard at last.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Five of the stories here are flat-out masterpieces ("In Dreams;" "The World is a Wedding;" "New Year's Eve;" "The Commencement Address;" and "The Track Meet"), while the other 3 are extremely well done, if not as wholly satisfying. This collection should be required reading in every contemporary lit. class. It's got everything: all the themes of struggle, frustration and defeat, responsibility, ambition, all the thoughts that men have thought in every age, and captures its era so perfectly and completely I am in awe. Even though the stories are, in some ways similar (especially "In Dreams," "The Commencement Address," and "The Track Meet"), they are utterly original, beautiful, hallucinatory, profound, funny and heartbreaking. Schwartz -- that great voice speaking out against the crowd -- deserves to be heard at last.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: The best of the stories in here are brilliant. The dialogue is great, as well as the reflective passages. That a mediocre short story writer like Raymond Carver is lauded, while Schwartz is relatively obscure, shows that the cream does NOT rise to the top. I've read passages of these stories a number of times. I can't praise them highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: The minor masterpiece
Review: This collection of stories is a minor masterpiece. As other Amazon reviewers have pointed out Schwartz is not much attended to these days, not much read. At one time he seemed to be the great promise of American writing. The sad tale of how he lost it and died young is now a part of his legend. In these stories he shows originality and invention. The unforgettable movie scene in ' In Dreams Begin Responsibilities' where the child watching the courtship of his parents, hearing his father propose yells out at the screen ' Don't do it. Don't do it' is funny and deeply sad at once. Schwarz's Brooklyn world was one in which family frustrations and tensions seem to put reality itself on edge. It is Schwartz after all who is really responsible for the famous ' Paranoids too have real enemies'. Whether the persecutor was himself or not , they got him young. Before this he wrote these wonderful stories which hopefully will have a larger place in the American canon in the years to come.
Rating:
Summary: Schwartz's Gift
Review: This collection of stories is graced by two introductions and lives up to every superlative. Irving Howe and biographer James Atlas note for the reader Delmore Schwartz's unfailing ear for the idiom of his parents' generation. Each of the stories is a masterpiece and competes, in terms of quality, with the Schwartz poetry. Having read James Atlas's biography of Delmore Schwartz this reader thinks of tragic waste and pain when thinking of Schwartz. And yet, and yet, when one considers the brilliance of these stories, the fact that his mere existence inspired the wonderful novel HUMBOLDT'S GIFT by Saul Bellow, and that he evoked intense loyality from his students the picture shifts to a life of immense achievement not disproportionate to his evident gift. This New Directions Paperback has a compelling photograph on the cover.
Rating:
Summary: Schwartz's Gift
Review: This collection of stories is graced by two introductions and lives up to every superlative. Irving Howe and biographer James Atlas note for the reader Delmore Schwartz's unfailing ear for the idiom of his parents' generation. Each of the stories is a masterpiece and competes, in terms of quality, with the Schwartz poetry. Having read James Atlas's biography of Delmore Schwartz this reader thinks of tragic waste and pain when thinking of Schwartz. And yet, and yet, when one considers the brilliance of these stories, the fact that his mere existence inspired the wonderful novel HUMBOLDT'S GIFT by Saul Bellow, and that he evoked intense loyality from his students the picture shifts to a life of immense achievement not disproportionate to his evident gift. This New Directions Paperback has a compelling photograph on the cover.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This is an absolutely fantastic collection of short storys, each one is so presice and refreshing. I recomend it to everyone. His writing is striking, and extremely well written yet underrated.
<< 1 >>
|
