{"id":2496,"date":"2019-06-29T07:46:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-29T14:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2496"},"modified":"2019-06-29T07:51:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-29T14:51:55","slug":"a-lot-about-a-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2496","title":{"rendered":"A lot about a lot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob\u2019s back! Actually, Bob Moyer wrote this review before he took off on his recent travels, but it got buried in my email. Check back soon for reviews Bob has written since his return.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

WORDS AND WORLDS. By Alison Lurie. Delphinium. 225 pages. $25.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Alison Lurie has written a lot about \u2014 a lot. In her long career, she has to her credit numerous articles, essays and novels, including Foreign Affairs<\/em>, which won the Pulitzer Prize. She writes engagingly about interesting subjects; this book, subtitled From Autobiography To Zippers<\/em>,\u00a0 represents her skill, catholicity and longevity emphatically.<\/p>\n

Longevity is key here. Lurie doesn\u2019t hesitate to date herself in the service of a subject . She drags us back to \u201cTheir Harvard,\u201d where she was a second-class student from the all-women\u2019s college Radcliffe. She takes no position, but she pointedly cites the many raised female hands that were ignored, and the many professors who ignored them. In a section labeled \u201cClothing,\u201d she regales us with the history of \u201cAprons,\u201d and adds the personal touch of the aprons she wore as a \u201950s\u2019 housewife. With great abandon, she revels in \u201cLife After Fashion\u201d for her and other women of a certain age, who can wear what they darn well please.<\/p>\n

Her writing, however, is not the least dated. A lengthy piece that outlines \u201cWhat Happened in Hamlet\u201d simply sparkles through the years. Her wide-eyed wonder and nose for detail bring a London production of Hamlet\u00a0<\/em>alive long after the \u201970s\u2019 production she covered. Her pieces about people she knew, even if we don\u2019t, all have a marked poignancy, particularly the one about the book artist Edward Gorey. She knew him as Ted.<\/p>\n

Particularly pertinent are her essays derived from her depth of knowledge about children\u2019s literature. She brings \u201cRapunzel: The Girl In The Tower\u201d into the #ME TOO era, and takes on Trumpian overtones in \u201cHarry Potter Revisited.\u00a0\u201c<\/p>\n

Not all of the subjects of these 21 essays may interest you, but what Lurie has to say about them will. Alison Lurie knows how to write, even though someone tells her in an essay \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have To Write A Novel<\/em>,\u201d or anything else. Fortunately, she didn\u2019t listen then, or now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob\u2019s back! Actually, Bob Moyer wrote this review before he took off on his recent travels, but it got buried in my email. Check back soon for reviews Bob has written since his return. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer WORDS AND WORLDS. By Alison Lurie. Delphinium. 225 pages. $25. Alison Lurie has written a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[252,10,813],"tags":[1112,1065,1113],"class_list":["post-2496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiography","category-contemporary-nonfiction","category-essays-contemporary-nonfiction","tag-alison-lurie","tag-essays","tag-words-and-worlds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2499,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions\/2499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}