posted by Matthew Belinkie on June 15th, 2008
Posted in: books, culture, music
Tags: band, book, books, criticism, devil, faust, literature, march, marine, review, sousa, star and stripes
First of all, if you ever intended to sit down on a beach somewhere and enjoy John Philip Sousa’s 1902 novel The Fifth String, stop reading now. This is going to be a spoiler-heavy review. (If you do want to check the book out yourself, the etext is available here.)
As you might expect from America’s foremost bandleader, the novel is about a musician. As you might NOT expect, it’s about a violinist. But it turns out that violin was Sousa’s first instrument, and always one of his best. So there.
The violinist in question is Angelo Diotti, a famous virtuoso arriving in New York to make his American debut. On the night before the performance, he attends a party and instantly falls in love with the daughter of a prominent banker:
He seemed hypnotized by the vision, which moved slowly from between the blue-tinted portieres and stood for the instant, a perfect embodiment of radiant womanhood, silhouetted against the silken drapery.
Don’t worry - I had to look up “portiere” too.
more »
Posted in books, culture, music | 1 Comment »
[I'll get back to wrapping up my "No Crying In Baseball" series next week, but for a bit, I want to start a new series -- books I fantasize about writing someday. I'll probably come back to this intermittently. It's a blog series I've always wanted to write. –Fenzel]
So, my boy Bill Bryson wrote a new book about some old subject matter: Shakespeare: The World As Stage, part of the Harper Collins Eminent Lives series. Harper Collins describes the series as “Brief biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures.” I recommend the series for pleasure reading (it’s a soft recommendation), but that’s not what this post is about.
I like Bill Bryson a ton — mostly for his writing style guide: Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer’s Guide to Getting It Right, which is the most fun you will ever have reading an index of words that isn’t by Ambrose Bierce. He’s got a witty, comfortable, conversational style, and he doesn’t bullshit you. That, of course, makes it difficult for him to write a biography of Shakespeare, because, as Bryson goes into very early in the book, most biographies of Shakespeare are bullshit. more »
Posted in books, culture, theater | No Comments »
I hardly use cookbooks anymore, but I covet the hell out of this one
.
Posted in humor, links, movies | 1 Comment »
