Jarrell, Randall

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"Now they believe in their poor little dad"
Novels can do that?
It kidnaps you!
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman*
Masterpiece, but dark. Don't read the "introduction" first

The Man Who Loved Children: A Novel
Christina Stead
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0312280440

Book Description

Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children's adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair, knowing the bitter reality that lies just below his mad visions. A chilling novel of family life, of the relations between parents and children, husbands and wives, The Man Who Loved Children is acknowledged as a contemporary classic.AUTHORBIO: Christina Stead was the author of over a dozen works of fiction and the recipient of The Patrick White Prize. She was born in Australia in 1902 and died in 1983.

Customer Reviews:

"Now they believe in their poor little dad".......2007-06-03

The human being in the title of Christina Stead neglected masterpiece "The Man Who Loved Children" is Sam Pollit, a person in his late thirties but who acts as if he was a kid - at least most of the time when he is with his kids. For them, he is a sort of `jealous god', as describes Randall Jarrell in the introduction to the Picador edition.

On the other hand, Henrietta, aka Henny, Sam's wife and the mother of most of his children, is the incarnation of the devil. Selfish and mean, she threats to kill their child a dozen of times throughout the narrative. However much she is not a good person, Stead doesn't make of Sam a saintly figure - he is just human. And surprisingly, so is Henny.

This is the most beautiful quality of "The Man Who Loved Children" it is a book populated by people that the readers feel they are made of flesh and blood, not made up characters for a narrative purpose. The theme here is family and its dynamics. It is natural that Sam is a man who likes children - specially his - because he is somehow a child who uses strange language, and acts as if not believing the world is real and mean.

The Pollit kids are as just as any kid we know. They like to play, don't like to go to school, behave bad sometimes, and are full of dreams and innocence. This portray of family created by Stead makes "The Man Who Loved Children" one of the most important books written about the subject.

Sam is a man who does not believe in God, but in Science. He says that his kids now believe in him, `their poor little Dad', but when they grow up, they will `believe in Faraday, Clerk, Maxwell, and Einstein". This clearly exemplifies how the world is shaped in his point of view. But the book cannot be read as the clash between science and faith, since Henny is not a religious person. This is a narrative about family ties and all the troubles that come with once we want to keep these ties alive.

Novels can do that? .......2006-02-14

I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to experience the trials of a smart family coping and not coping with their ignorance, unemployment, poverty, conflicts of morality and vision. Witness the dynamics of the Pollit family - depictions of life on a magnitude of veracity itself. Proving as no other twentieth century novel Tolstoy's thesis as stated in Anna Karenina "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Here we find literary documentation of an engaging, charming, joyful group with a unique brand of unhappiness as bitter as madness. Madness of high acidity - both propositions packaged in to one loose baggy flowing monster. An incredible accomplishment.

It kidnaps you!.......2005-12-19

I think this book is one of th first books I ever read that pulled me in head over heels, and I've just reread it and am bowled over again by coming up for air after being inside the family of the Pollits. This book is painful but absolutely brilliant, and no one who loves literature should live his life without reading this book.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman*.......2003-11-07

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead is a rare literary masterpiece. It tells the tale of the inner life of the Pollit family (Sam and Henny Pollit with 6 children). The novel is representative of Christina Stead's past. And Louie, the protagonist, is of course, a version of young Stead who grew up in Sydney.

The Man Who Loved Children is a novel about power structures within relationships. I really enjoyed Stead's genius with the monologue, Henny Pollit's excessive and abject speeches and Sam Pollit's frightening idealistic speeches that transform the entire world into a homogenous suburb. The novel is full of amazing realistic and violent detail.

Don't reach for this book if you want to relax or looking for an exciting plot. This is a book that resists easy reading. Unfortunately, the novel has never received the popularity it deserved because it was out of print for some years, making a comeback only in the 1960s when it was popularised in the U.S.

*Taken from James Joyce's Modernist masterpiece- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Masterpiece, but dark. Don't read the "introduction" first.......2002-10-17

The introduction, which is by Randall Jarell (not Doris Lessing) was originally intended as an Afterword, and is so published in previous editions of the book.

That's why it gives away the plot.

I have no idea why the idiot publisher put it first this time.

Anyway, while it takes some patience to get through Sam's babytalk and Henny's rages, there is gold all the way through. The inner life of a house and family is conveyed as in few other books, with vividness and specificity.

Amazon.com

Randall Jarrell's The Bat-Poet is the story of an artist. Although the bat-poet may look like a furry mouse with wings, he swells with an artistic sensibility. One day, he discovers how amazing it is to stay awake during daylight hours, exploring things mostly unseen by standard, nocturnal bats. But when he tries to get his bat friends to stay awake with him, they say, "Day's to sleep in." And so the sensitive bat-poet is left alone to embrace the wonders of the day, including the fascinating activities of the possums, squirrels, chipmunks, and especially the mockingbird. The bat-poet attempts to sing a song like the mockingbird's, "But when he tried, his high notes were all high and the notes in between were all high," so he imitates the mockingbird's words instead, and concocts poetry about how the sun "shines like a million moons" and other daytime marvels. Children will identify with the bat-poet's struggle to be understood, and adults will revel in Jarrell's artful prose and gentle wisdom. Maurice Sendak decorates more than illustrates the book with delicate, endearing pen-and-ink sketches of woodland scenes--the perfect complement to Jarrell's lyrical, philosophical, exquisitely spun fable. School Library Journal writes, "The totality charms by turns the eye, the ear, and the imagination, and as true poetry must, it satisfies the heart." (All ages) --Karin Snelson

Book Description

There was once a little brown bat who couldn't sleep days-he kept waking up and looking at the world. Before long he began to see things differently from the other bats, who from dawn to sunset never opened their eyes. The Bat-Poet is the story of how he tried to make the other bats see the world his way.

Here in The Bat-Poet are the bat's own poems and the bat's own world: the owl who almost eats him; the mockingbird whose irritable genius almost overpowers him; the chipmunk who loves his poems, and the bats who can't make beads or tails of them; the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, and sparrows who fly in and out of Randall Jarrell's funny, lovable, truthful fable.

Customer Reviews:

A WONDERFUL LITTLE BOOK........2007-04-29

Randall Jarrell has given us a beautiful little story here of a bat and Maurice Sendak has given us some wonderful illustrations in the form of black and white drawings. There is not much to not like about this work. The children love it, and the adult reading it to the children will find it just as interesting and hypnotic as the child, if not more so, but on a different level. The text is wonderfully simple and a pure joy to read. I recommened this one highly.

Bats can be mesmerizing!.......2006-11-10

We had a "bat book drive" in my daughter's class because they needed more research material about bats for a project they are doing than we could find in the local library. Instead of only purchasing scientific-sounding non-fiction, I was also looking for story and poetry books in which the charateristics and habits of bats were woven throughout the stories and poems. I read this book to my eight-year-old daughter the night before we took it to class. She demanded that I give her the book so that she could read it again herself. And, with stars in her eyes, stated that the poem at the end about a bats life was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard, and that she would be memorizing it. It was amazing how much she had learned and remembered about bats after the first time through the book. Lovely illustrations as well.

one of the best children's books ever.......2005-10-01

A beautiful story, beautifully written, about a little bat who composes poetry. One of the best children's books I've ever read; I order several copies at a time and give them for birthday presents.

All ages will enjoy!.......2005-08-06

Just because this is children's literature dosen't mean it is just for children. If you have an appreciation of literature or even if your not a big reader, this story will warm you heart with its wonderful characters, lovely story and beautiful writing. So simply written, it can be read to children, so beautiful the writing people older than 8 will defenitely will enjoy!! Randall Jarell is in my opinion, one of the kings of children's literature!

not just for children.......2002-08-23

This book is a gem. It's tender, clever, and deftly written. It's wonderful for reading aloud. I had trouble finding it for years, and I'm so pleased to see that it's available again.

Randall Jarrell's Letters: An Autobiographical and Literary Selection

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Randall Jarrell's Letters: An Autobiographical and Literary Selection
Randall Jarrell , Stuart Wright , and Stephen Burt
Manufacturer: University of Virginia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0813921538

Book Description

In this expanded edition of Randall Jarrell's letters, his widow, Mary, has added letters from Jarrell to Peter Taylor, publication of which was withheld during Taylor's lifetime. Taylor was, along with Robert Lowell, Jarrell's oldest and closest friend, and the inclusion of these incomparable letters adds another dimension of friendship, artistry, and intellect to a collection already noted for its behind-the-scenes glimpse of twentieth-century American literary history in the making.

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs (Sunburst Book)

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ausm
The Original Snow White Restored
The scariest Snow-White you've ever read---NOT a Disney version!
Beautiful
A Powerful and Compellingly illustrated Snow White

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs (Sunburst Book)
Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm , and Nancy Eckholm Burkert
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0374468680

Amazon.com

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?" repeatedly asks the Queen, Snow White's stepmother. She always gets the answer she wants, until Snow White turns seven, and the mirror must truthfully answer, "Snow White." At the news, the Queen turns yellow and green with envy and commands the huntsman to kill Snow White and bring her "lung and liver as a token." Thus begins another enchanting fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm!

Kirkus Reviews called this collaboration between Randall and Nancy Eckholm Burkert "a sort of legend even before its time of publication." Jarrell also wrote The Bat-Poet and The Animal Family, a Newbery Honor Book. Jarrell retained the Grimm (and grim) ending to the tale, as the stepmother is forced to dance to her death. Burkert's illustrations are magical, light-filled creations that more than earn the book its Caldecott Honor Book status. This delightful book's extra-large format showcases the fabulously detailed illustrations, alternating two facing pages of art with two pages of straight text. This is an unforgettable interpretation of a well-loved story. (Ages 6 to 9)

Book Description

The story of Snow White is told here with simplicity and charm. After her wicked stepmother--jealous of Snow White's extraordinary beauty--expels her from the castle, Snow White encounters seven dwarfs, a poisoned apple, and finally a handsome prince!

Customer Reviews:

ausm.......2006-12-13

this was not my favorite book but you can tell that it had to tack along time for them to come up with the pictures in this book. i thought that thee book was pretty easy to read i loved how she got back awak. my favorite part in this story was when she got awak at the end . I think that this was a good book for a fairy tale but you could tell that she was they were in a fake place. so i still rated it a five becuse it was a good book.

The Original Snow White Restored.......2006-11-04

Quick someone, grab some rope. Disney is down and we need to protect ourselves while we can. ;) It is so wonderful to see this beautiful tale restored to its original depth and content. The translation is marvelous, from showing the queen being overpowered by jealousy, to the interest and friendliness of the woodland creatures. And the illustrations!! No strange little cartoon creatures here, just reagular dwarf men, neither spooky nor kooky. The illustrations are so beautiful, one can't help becoming absorbed in the intricacy and detail of each tree and piece of fabric! A truly wonderful book!

The scariest Snow-White you've ever read---NOT a Disney version!.......2005-12-13

If you like your fairy tales totally authentic and not Disney-sized, you will love this one! It's Snow-White with all the scary parts left in--the wicked stepmother asking for the liver and lungs of the dead Snow-White, the prince falling in love with a dead body---it would have been a little much for my sons had they not been 8 and 11 at first reading! As it was, they liked this a lot---perhaps because I don't let them watch horror movies and this is as close as they get!

But besides that, this is a beautiful book. It's an interesting set-up, with all the writing on alternate double pages and the big picture spreads on the others. The pictures are extremely detailed and wonderful to look at. However, if you are doing this as a read-aloud, it's sometimes hard to give the pictures their due, as the kids are eager to hear what happens next and you have to turn to the page to read that. It's the sort of book you would need to have around the house a lot, so they would be able to look at it at their leisure.

I would say this is most definately for ages 8 and up or so! It's a gorgeous book, and a more compelling story than the fairy tale I remember.

Beautiful.......2005-10-08

This book is very nice -- large format and beautiful illustrations -- and a great value.

A Powerful and Compellingly illustrated Snow White.......2004-06-15

This book was one of my favorite's at our school's library when I was younger. This is far from Disney's version. The illustrations are breath-taking and moody at times, yet they embrace the simple essence of the story. The text is perfect for reading aloud but the pictures deserve many glances. The details in the illustrations are something to behold. Children will enjoy this version but also anyone on the college level interested in fantasy literature and illustration. Bottom Line: A simple yet elegant edition worthy of having a place on your bookshelf. A+

The Animal Family (Michael Di Capua Books)

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Gentle, old-fashioned, and whimsical.
Beautiful
A fairy tale brought to life
The Animal Family
Becoming a family

The Animal Family (Michael Di Capua Books)
Randall Jarrell
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Bat-Poet
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ASIN: 0062059041

Amazon.com

"Once upon a time, long, long ago, where the forest runs down to the ocean, a hunter lived all alone in a house made of logs he had chopped for himself and shingles he had split for himself." These words ease the reader into the elegant, dreamlike world of Randall Jarrell's Newbery Honor book The Animal Family. One night, the lonely hunter hears the singing of a mermaid, and because "he himself was as patient as an animal," the mermaid learns to trust him, speaking to him in a voice like the water. In time they teach each other their languages, with many amusing exchanges occurring as the hunter tries to teach his new friend terrestrial words and concepts. The hunter explains, "The house is a big wooden thing ... that you stay inside at night or when it rains." "Why?" she asks. "To keep from getting wet." "To keep from getting wet?" the mermaid says despairingly.

The mermaid and the hunter become a family when the hunter takes a bear cub from its mother to live with them as a son. "The bear's table manners were bad. But so were the mermaid's--especially as she couldn't resist throwing the bear pieces of fish." Having a bear around seems perfectly normal, but not quite a complete family, so eventually the hunter captures a spotted baby lynx. When the lynx brings home not another dead partridge, but a little boy, the delicate, playful family dynamics change again. This book of low-key epiphanies is packed with delightful, illuminating, often unexpected comparisons of the ocean world and the land world most non-mermaids wouldn't have considered. Enhanced by a beautiful design and gorgeous illustrations by Maurice Sendak, this book is perfect for any reader--young or old--ready for a bit of gentle philosophy with a decided twinkle. (All ages) --Karin Snelson

Book Description

This is the story of how, one by one, a man found himself a family. Almost nowhere in fiction is there a stranger, dearer, or funnier family -- and the life that the members of The Animal Familylive together, there in the wilderness beside the sea, is as extraordinary and as enchanting as the family itself.

Customer Reviews:

Gentle, old-fashioned, and whimsical........2006-11-15

This story by Jarrell is gentle, mythical, and stands the test of time. A short story about a solitary hunter on an island, who meets a mermaid, and together form a family with animals they meet. The tone is warm and soft, kind and at times bittersweet.

While perfect for bedtime, cold or rainy days, this book is appealing to me even as i grow older. The subtle lessons about companionship, newness, differences, loneliness, loss, and joy are not forced to the fore. Rather, an old-fashioned sense of creating an environment as a way to tell a story is key here. Inviting wilderness, homely relationships, and just enough magic and mystery to compel the story forward.

One of my most treasured books since i was a young child, the is a timeless and infinitely re-readable story.

Beautiful.......2006-08-16

I read this as a child. It got stuck in my mind, but I could never remember the title, thinking of it only as the story of the Hunter and the Mermaid. I searched for it for years.

This is a beautiful story, one of my favorites for children.

A fairy tale brought to life.......2005-02-17

Every once in a while, an author manages to pull off a novel that carries with it the exact tone and magical feeling of a fairy tale. In the genre of The Last Unicorn and The Princess Bride, this beautiful story takes you into a peaceful world where a lonely hunter lives by the sea.
The story follows the hunter's efforts to make a family for himself, and to keep that family safe. I don't want to spoil any of the plot points, but I will say that this gentle fable is going to fill each reader with joy and contentment. The tale is universal, and is just perfect for a shared experience at bedtime.
The decorations by Maurice Sendak are also quite lovely, giving us detailed sketches of the landscapes that the hunter and his family occupy.

The Animal Family.......2005-01-10

This book is truly what you would call a beautifully written piece of literature. It is the story of a lonely hunter who meets a mermaid. She comes to live with him despite being torn between her home in the sea and her love for the hunter. They live happily except that they wish for a child. Since to have a human child is not possible, the hunter first brings home a bear cub and then a lynx who become like their children. This story has a wonderful, dreamlike quality to it. The words and story flow lyrically and almost timelessly and the descriptions are simple and wonderfully vivid and beautiful. It will apeal to all ages. Children will like the funny story and gentleness of the words and teens and adults will find the deeper meaning as well as appreaciate the lovely scenes. This is a book you will want to read over and over.

Becoming a family.......2003-12-08

This is a beautiful story of a lone woodsman who befriends a curious mermaid before long they become a family of two. A bear is added to their family and the family continues to grow. The most pleasing aspect of this book is the characters. They are written without pretense, they are not contrived, they are real and wonderful. Upon conclusion of the first chapter my 3-year-old proclaimed, "this is my favorite story ever." My seven year old has enjoyed it for years - as have I.

Average customer rating:

My favorite America poet of the 20th century
An interesting poet

The Complete Poems
Randall Jarrell
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

No Other Book: Selected Essays
The Complete Poems, 1927-1979
Randall Jarrell and His Age
Poetry and the Age
The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke

ASIN: 0374513058

Book Description

Poet, novelist, critic, and teacher, Randall Jarrell was a diverse literary talent with a distinctive voice, by turns imaginative, realistic, sensitive, and ironic. His poetry, whether dealing with art, war, memories of childhood, or the loneliness of everyday life, is powerful and moving. A poet of colloquial language, ample generosity, and intimacy, Jarrell wrote beautifully "of the American landscape," as James Atlas noted in American Poetry Review, "[with] a broad humanism that enabled him to give voice to those had been given none of their own."

The Complete Poems is the definitive volume of Randall Jarrell's verse, including Selected Poems (1955), with notes by the author; The Woman at the Washington Zoo (1960), which won the National Book Award for Poetry; and The Lost World (1965), "his last and best book," according to Robert Lowell. This volume also brings together several of Jarrell's uncollected or posthumously published poems as well as his Rilke translations.

Customer Reviews:

My favorite America poet of the 20th century.......2006-04-07

Randall Jarrell was the very image of the academic poet. He wore beautiful tweeds. His beard was just-so. He drove a sports car. He was ferociously well-educated. (His wife teasingly called him "arrogant and pretentious." His response: "Wittier than anybody!") His classes were legendary. And he had a tragic death: hit by a car as he walked along a highway at dusk.

And, of course, he was accomplished. In addition to his poems, Jarrell was an acute critic --- those essays are collected in No Other Book --- who could build a case for a writer he loved or destroy an enemy with a line: Oscar Williams's poems, he said, give the impression of "having been written on a typewriter by a typewriter." He wrote a novel satirizing a college literature department. He loved fairy tales, and produced a brilliant translation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The poems? You've read him. You just forgot. Jarrell served in World War II. This is his classic poem, anthologized everywhere --- "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," in its entirety:

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

I love Jarrell for his later work, especially the poems from the collection, "The Lost World." He has a leering sense of sex, a warmly ironic take on the dance between men and women, and although he certainly understood men, his sympathies seemed to lay with the despair and hopefulness of women. Which is all to say: Despite what he knew, he was a total romantic. "A wish, come true, is life. I have my life," he wrote. Knowing what we do about his second marriage, we know that this satisfaction is not invented.

Some favorite lines:

While you are, how am I alone?...
Be, as you have been, my happiness;
Let me sleep beside you, each night, like a spoon;
When, starting from my sleep, I groan to you,
May your "I love you" send me back to sleep.
At morning bring me, grayer for its mirroring,
The heavens' sun perfected in your eyes.

A clever reader will plow through this book, pencil in hand, the better to mark lines to steal. Jarrell is that good. And that contemporary --- you won't have to stretch to make his poetry your own. Go ahead. No one will know. And I will never tell.

An interesting poet.......2000-04-06

I picked up this collection in order to read Jarrell's fairy tale poems that are included, particularly in "Once Upon a Time." However, with such a large example of his work before me, I found myself reading more and finding bits and pieces which spoke to me. I recommend this collection for learning more about Randall Jarrell and his body of work.

Average customer rating:

CLEVER and WONDERFUL story for a read aloud! CLASSIC!

The Gingerbread Rabbit
Randall Jarrell
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Release Date: 2004-01-20

Amazon.com

Mary's mother has a surprise for her--a delicious gingerbread rabbit. But the real surprises start when this cookie comes to life! The raisin-eyed rabbit, still uncooked on the counter, bemoans his fate to the paring knife, mixing bowl, and rolling pin, when they warn him that nothing has ever escaped from the kitchen without being eaten. When the rabbit spies Mary's mother, just back from the grocery store, a "giant" with "dozens of tremendous shining white teeth the size of a grizzly bear's," he realizes he hasn't a chance. Much to the mother's surprise, her flat, doughy creation makes a run for it! But she wants the gingerbread rabbit for her daughter so much, she races right after him. Garth Williams, illustrator of Charlotte's Web and The Cricket in Times Square captures the chase perfectly with his magical pen-and-ink sketches. Readers will follow breathlessly as the gingerbread rabbit narrowly escapes the guiles of a wily fox, and is finally rescued by an actual rabbit and his wife, who take him into their home to live happily ever after eating lettuce, carrots, and watercress.

This gentle story of a mother's fervent love for her only daughter, and the comical, suspenseful adventures of her rabbit cookie is carefully spun in Jarrell's flawless, slightly tongue-in-cheek prose. A jauntier inanimate rabbit-comes-to-life story than Margery Williams's The Velveteen Rabbit, and a more complex tale than The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Rabbit is a classic read-aloud that youngsters will clamor for again and again. (Ages 5 and older) --Karin Snelson

Book Description

Once upon a time there was a mothe . . . who loved her daughter so much, she wanted to make her a wonderful surprise. So she mixed up some dough and cut out a beautiful gingerbread rabbit. But she got the surprise when the rabbit jumped up, ran out the door, and escaped into the forest! </p>

Follow the gingerbread rabbit and the mother as they run through the woods finding adventure, new friends, and the best surprises of all. </p>

Customer Reviews:

CLEVER and WONDERFUL story for a read aloud! CLASSIC!.......2005-03-28

I can't believe that no one has reviewed this book! What a cute story that is thoroughly engaging for little ones and fun to read out loud as well. The witty storytelling is suburb with just the right amount of suspense and great twists. The narrator even addresses the audience, which definitely adds to the appeal and lends an oral storytelling feel to the experience. It is also noteworthy that there is a happily-ever-after ending for everyone -- no violence in store for the gingerbread bunny! :) The black and white illustrations are adorable as well. My girls 4 and 6 really loved the book and I'm sure we'll be reading it again soon. Extend the fun by baking gingerbread rabbits and recreating the surprise that the mother made for her daughter! It is too bad that a classic like this is apparently overlooked! I will definitely be adding more of Randall Jarrell's books to our collection!

Pictures from an Institution (Phoenix Fiction Series)

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The Supreme Academic Novel
Fall out of your chair, roaring funny!
Disappointing
Locked in an Institution
Really worth the read

Pictures from an Institution (Phoenix Fiction Series)
Randall Jarrell
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Groves of Academe
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Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel And Its Discontents (Personal Takes)
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ASIN: 0226393747

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Randall Jarrell's only novel features a Bryn Mawr-like women's college in which whispers and verbal shivs and sycophancy rule. "Half the campus was designed by Bottom the Weaver, half by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Benton had been endowed with one to begin with, and had smiled and sweated and spoken for the other." The institution's star-struck head is a Clintonesque young man particularly adept at raising money in Hollywood and who "wanted you to like him, he wanted everybody to like him--it was part of being a president; but talking all the time was too." Unfortunately, his new creative-writing hire only likes him the first time they meet. Thenceforth, she not only stirs things up but skewers them as well.

When the book was first published in 1954, most considered Gertrude Johnson to be a none-too-veiled portrait of Mary McCarthy. (The Partisan Review, for instance, failed to run a planned excerpt for fear of litigation.) "As a writer Gertrude had one fault more radical than all the rest: she did not know--or rather, did not believe--what it was like to be a human being. She was one, intermittently, but while she wasn't she did not remember what it had felt like to be one; and her worse self distrusted her better too thoroughly to give it much share, ever, in what she said or wrote." Pictures from an Institution is a superb series of poisonous portraits, set pieces, and endlessly quotable put-downs. One reads it less for plot than sharp satire, of which Jarrell is the master.

Book Description

"The father of the modern campus novel, and the wittiest of them all. Extraordinary to think that 'political correctness' was so deliciously dissected 50 years ago."--Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph

"Move over Dorothy Parker. Pictures . . . is less a novel than a series of poisonous portraits, set pieces, and endlessly quotable put-downs. Read it less for plot than sharp satire, Jarrell's forte."--Mary Welp

"I'm greatly impressed by the real fun, the incisive satire, the closeness of observation, and in the end by a kind of sympathy and human warmth. It's a remarkable book."--Robert Penn Warren

Customer Reviews:

The Supreme Academic Novel.......2006-12-19

Author Randall Jarrell's brilliantly witty, prophetic novel from the middle of the last century shows in their bud many of the absurd developments which have come to full flower in current American academe. Endless Tolerance, Creativity, and Diversity are already the buzzwords par excellence at fictional Benton College of the 1950's. Accordingly , Jarrell presents us with an art department whose members are so open minded (i.e. reluctant to judge between good and bad) that "if someone dipped a porcupine in chocolate and called it modern, they'd swallow it." Similarly, a creative writing department replete with published authors brought in to teach students more ambitious than talented flourishes at Benton. One such student, Sylvia Moomaw, has written a story of which she's singularly proud. It involves a bug which wakes up in bed to find itself turned into a man. "Influenced by Kafka," she shyly acknowledges, when talking about her "artistry" to the skeptical central character, Sydney. Finally, Benton College is especially self-congratulatory over its efforts at outreach, seeking token representatives for Diversity's purposes, even from an area as remote and unpromising as Tierra del Fuego, lest anyone be excluded. If artists generally see in advance of the rest of us, this novel may be adduced as evidence for the point.

Fall out of your chair, roaring funny!.......2006-06-15

I laughed out loud through the entire thing! People on the street would stop me and ask what was so funny. Randall Jarrell, a poet, and Mary McCarthy were on the Bard College campus at the same time in the '50's, when McCarthy was a writer in residence for a year. Jarrell shadows her cold-hearted fiction-gathering techniques, as she observes the Bard faculty in action(this is during the 1950's) for a book she wrote called The Groves of Academe. My piano teacher thought it was a mean-spirited view of McCarthy, but Jarell was a cose friend of hers; it's somewhat of a loving portrait. PS: Groves of Academe was also very good. Pictures is a "Making Of".

Disappointing.......2004-06-21

I was determined to like this book and gave it my best shot, but found I couln't bring myself to finish it. Yes, it's witty, but it's also hopelessly dated. The fifties had come and gone long before I was born, so I confess that many of the cultural references went right over my head. If you are looking for a spoof on academia, you're better off reading David Lodge or Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim.

Locked in an Institution.......2003-11-22

The title tells you right away that this book will be very clever, but it should also alert you that it is a series of satiric set pieces rather than a fully-realised novel. The narrator, self-effacing and elusive, turns his gaze on administrators and faculty at fictional Benton College more or less in turn although a flimsy plot takes us through the term. Some of the characters, notably the music professor, attain full stature as literary creations but the main object of the narrator's attention, the woman novelist, is presented with a cruelty that is difficult to comprehend within the story as we have it. It is clear that we are reading a roman-a-clef and I for one did not have the key. However, the narrator has a wonderful store of witticisms and parts of the book are very funny even if the total effect is uneven.

Really worth the read.......2001-11-16

Randall Jarrell's roman a clef about life in a small college, in that it centers upon a Mary McCarthyesque novelist who is herself embarking upon her own roman a clef (very much like THE GROVES OF ACADEME) about the "little people" who also trundle through the small college campus where she is allowed to stride magnificently like a contemptuous giantess. Thus the reader has the double pleasure of seeing her ironic views of the failings of the people around her contextualized by his or her ironic view of her own grosser moral failings. The giddy mise-en-abyme effect of this is tempered at the end, wherein the novel's narrating consciousness (our guide through this academic Wonderland ) must confront whether there is something to find beautiful--and sincerely--in this most artificial and insincere of playworlds. A wonderful work.

The Juniper Tree: And Other Tales from Grimm

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Lost in translation no longer
Beloved Childhood Book
Great Stories and Great Pictures

The Juniper Tree: And Other Tales from Grimm

Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Anthologies | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0374339716

Book Description

A one-volume hardcover edition for the 30th anniversary

Originally published as a two-volume set thirty years ago, The Juniper Tree is distinguished first by the selection of stories. Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak have jointly culled 27 from
the 210 in the complete collection, and their contents page presents a fascinating critical statement. The translations are another distinguishing quality of the Segal/Sendak edition. Both translators have been painstakingly faithful to the German texts; they have not cut, “retold,” or bowdlerized. In addition, Segal and Jarrell bring to their renderings of Grimm the grace and precision that are characteristic of their own original prose. This must-have edition for every home library is jacketed and cloth-bound and has a bookmark ribbon.

Customer Reviews:

Lost in translation no longer.......2001-06-26

After hearing Sendak speak of the tragic fate that has befallen the fairy tale, I immediately went online in search of the Juniper Tree collection, a seventies-era translation of Grimm's fairy tales that professed to be true to the originals.

According to Sendak, modern adaptations of fairy tales lack the vigor and violence of the originals, which themselves were adaptation of the spoken-word. Call it Disney-fication, but new translations seemed to candy-coat old tales into generic rubbish. Sendak said that he took on this commission in order to rejuvenate the fairy-tale genre. And I can only find success in the venture. The new translation adds spice to fairy tales that I have heard countless times, in addition to adding many more obscure fairy tales to a reader's collection. And Sendak's beautiful black and white illustrations certainly don't hurt the package. His characteristic drawings add life and excitement to the written word.

Definitely get this copy instead of any cheesy new version of a fairy tale. It's not as violent/different from normal fairy tale editions as I expected, but the change is significant enought to have warranted this translation. And sure, there isn't a Sendak illustration on every page, but kids need something to look forward to in a book, don't they?

Beloved Childhood Book.......2001-01-01

As a child I found this book at a garage sale. It instantly became one of my most treasured books - that was over 20 years ago. It has some of the most interesting Fairy Tales, many have a slightly "different twist" than your typical tales (some outright silly while others dark and bit disturbing). Most of the stories are 3 to 5 pages long and are very quick reading, and the sketched illustrations are beautifully detailed. Excellent stories for children and adults alike. With my current copy falling apart - I was happy to see the book has been re-issued!

Great Stories and Great Pictures.......1999-09-11

My mom & step dad bought me this while on their honeymoon in Carmel in 1978 (I was 8 at the time). I loved it so much that it must be handled with care these days. Grimms fairy tales aren't necessarily for everyone. Several are very dark, but I truly enjoyed them. And who can beat Maurice Sendak as an illustrator???

A sad heart at the supermarket: Essays & fables

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A sad heart at the supermarket: Essays & fables
Randall Jarrell
Manufacturer: Eyre & Spottiswoode
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006DBWH6

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