This Strange, Old World and Other Book Reviews

by Katherine Anne Porter

Between 1920 and 1958 Katherine Anne Porter published more than 65 book reviews, many of which are now largely inaccessible. Although several such pieces have appeared in earlier collections of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820313319
• ISBN13: 9780820313313
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 149 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Rare reviews, written with grace and wit

The writing of Katherine Anne Porter has slipped out of literary fashion these days -- her sharply-drawn observations and difficult, flawed characters aren't the easy stuff of today's contemporary fiction. Her one major novel, "Ship of Fools," was published more than 45 years ago and won the Pulitzer Price in 1962. Her short stories are seldom anthologized, but they are gems of beauty and precision. This collection of published reviews shows Miss Porter, not surprisingly, was just as conscientious and thoughtful about the craft of her fellow authors as she was of her own writing. Although most of the books Miss Porter reviewed were not considered major works, their issues were of obvious interest to her as a writer: history, travel, culture (especially of Mexico), independent women discovering their social and economic equality in American society. It's a rare treat to read criticism that enhances and illuminates its subjects with such grace and style. There are nice touches of wit, too, without being cruel, even with authors that may undoubtedly deserve it. "Utopias are steadily on the decline," Miss Porter comments on one author's conclusion that the solution to the rise of feminist ideas is a return to "good, old-fashioned, romantic, hearty masculinity." She finds an equal target in Catherine the Great of Russia: "Female despots in the making do not suffer from a mother fixation," she writes in a witty review emphasizing Catherine's political -- and marriage -- ambitions. These brief reviews, written mainly on deadline, still echo the finely crafted style of Miss Porter's short stories. They also require the reader to read between the lines; much is implied. But they manage to be entertaining and worthwhile, years later, and anyone interested in Katherine Anne Porter should not miss reading them.