Words and Worlds
From Autobiography to Zippers
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Poignant remembrances and sharp observations from the “most able and witty” Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Foreign Affairs (The New York Times).
This engaging new collection of essays from the New York Times–bestselling novelist gathers together her reflections on the writing life; fond recollections of inspiring friends; and perceptive, playful commentary on preoccupations ranging from children’s literature to fashion and feminism.
Citing her husband’s comment to her that “Nobody asked you to write a novel,” Lurie goes on to eloquently explain why there was never another choice for her. She looks back on attending Radcliffe in the 1940s—an era of wartime rations and a wall of sexism where it was understood that Harvard was only for the men.
From offering a gleeful glimpse into Jonathan Miller’s production of Hamlet to memorializing mentors and intimate friends such as poet James Merrill, illustrator Edward Gorey, and New York Times Book Review coeditor Barbara Epstein, Lurie celebrates the creative artists who encouraged and inspired her.
A lifelong devotee of children’s literature, she suggests saying no to Narnia, revisits the phenomenon of Harry Potter, and tells the truth about the ultimate good bad boy, Pinocchio.
Returning to a favorite subject, fashion, Lurie explores the symbolic meaning of aprons, enthuses on how the zipper made dressing and undressing faster—and sexier—and tells how, feeling abandoned by Vogue at age sixty, she finally found herself freed from fashion’s restrictions on women.
Always spirited no matter the subject, Lurie ultimately conveys a joie de vivre that comes from a lifetime of never abandoning her “childish impulse to play with words, to reimagine the world.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.