Books

Book Review: Richard Powers’s Urgent “Orfeo” — Can Art Save Us?

January 27, 2014
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As with any Richard Powers novel, when you finish “Orfeo” you will have no doubt you are alive, awake, and likely ready to start over at page one.

Fuse Book Review: “My Life in Middlemarch” — Expanding the Boundaries of Memoir

January 24, 2014
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I don’t share Rebecca Mead’s awe for “Middlemarch,” but I share her enthusiasm for stretching the envelope of memoir.

Book Review: The Unwavering Gaze — Fabritius and Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”

January 23, 2014
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In Donna Tartt’s much-lauded third novel, Fabritius’ painting “The Goldfinch” and the fleeting nature of, well, everything comes together for a brief and shining moment.

Book Review: Art Historian Bernard Berenson — Reinvention as the American Dream

January 19, 2014
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Cohen devotes little space to Bernard Berenson’s art historical methodology, now largely superseded by modern approaches. She relates Berenson’s less admirable qualities without judging them.

Fuse Book Review: “Country of Ash” — Another Essential Holocaust Memoir

January 16, 2014
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We become increasingly aware that we are in the mind of a doctor who has taught himself to observe carefully, who has an amazingly strong will to survive, and who chooses not to waste precious time and energy on anger or revenge.

Poetry Commentary: Thoughts on Reading a New Translation of The Iliad

January 12, 2014
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Powell, the translator, a respected classicist, is noted for promulgating the theory that the Greek alphabet was designed precisely in order to capture epic poetry, provide some approximation of its sounds.

Book Review: “Back to Back” — A Powerful Portrait of East German Trauma, Personal and Political

January 11, 2014
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Using her family’s history as a springboard, Julia Franck has created exemplary figures forced to navigate the treacherous shoals of her country’s history.

Book Review: “Before I Burn” — A True Crime Story Transformed into Art

January 4, 2014
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“Before I Burn” gives the reader the awesome sense of a fully perceived life—the hallmark of great art.

Book Review: “Heat” — An Imaginatively Imaginary Interview with Actress Jean Seberg

December 28, 2013
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“Heat” is a fictional interview in which Dickinson asks uncomfortably intimate questions and then imagines the answers Seberg might have given.

Book Review: Martin Cruz Smith’s “Tatiana” — More than a Thriller?

December 19, 2013
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After 2010’s too spare “Three Stations,” fans old and new will find Martin Cruz Smith back in full form with “Tatiana,” creating a taut, subtle, often darkly funny and even moving tale.

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