The bloodied nightgown and other essays Cover Image

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The bloodied nightgown and other essays / Joan Acocella.

Summary:

"Joan Acocella was "one of our finest cultural critics" (Edward Hirsch), and she had the rare ability to examine literature and unearth the lives contained within it-its authors, its subjects, and the communities from which it springs. In her hands, arts criticism was a celebration and an investigation, and her essays pulse with unadulterated enthusiasm. As Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "Hers is a vision that allows art its mystery but not its pretensions, to which she is acutely sensitive. What better instincts could a critic have?" The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays gathers twenty-four essays from the final decade and a half of Acocella's career, as well as an introduction that frames her simple preoccupations: "life and art." In agile, inspired prose, she moves from J. R. R. Tolkien's translation of Beowulf to the life of Richard Pryor, from surveying profanity to untangling the book of Job. Her appetite (and reading list) knew no bounds. This collection is a joy and a revelation, a library in itself, and Acocella is our dream companion among its shelves"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780374608095
ISBN: 0374608091
Physical Description: xii, 354 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024.
Copyright: ©2024

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

The bloodied nightgown : Dracula -- Waugh stories : Alexander, Arthur, Evelyn, Auberon, and Alexander Waugh -- Prophet motive : Kahlil Gibran -- Queen of crime : Agatha Christie -- A dog's life : J. R. Ackerley -- The English wars : prescriptive and descriptive dictionaries -- Once upon a time : Grimms' fairy tales -- Why me? : the Book of Job -- Grendel hates music : J.R.R. Tolkien and Beowulf -- Lonesome Road : Marilynne Robinson -- Flamethrower : Richard Pryor -- Art wins : Elena Ferrante -- All villains have mothers : Elmore Leonard -- Fuckwad : dirty words -- Metamorphoses : Angela Carter -- Ladies' choice : Little Women -- Funny peculiar : Edward Gorey -- Brave face : Natalia Ginzburg -- Beyond the waters of death : Gilgamesh -- The day the Earth exploded : Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger -- Bigger things to hide behind : Andy Warhol -- A theory of the fantastic : Gianni Rodari -- Original sinner : Graham Greene -- Art made flesh : Francis Bacon.