This strange, old world and other book reviews
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
This strange, old world and other book reviews
University of Georgia Press, c1991
- alk. paper
Available at 12 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. xxxiv-xxxvi) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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 Porter's nonfiction writings, never have so many of Porter's reviews - nearly 50 - been made available in a single volume. Collectively the reviews reveal Porter's opinions on topics ranging from the nature of art and the place of the artist in politics and society to feminism and the role of female artists. Particularly evident in the reviews are the critical principles that guided her own work as well as her judgements of the works of other writers. In her introductory essay Darlene Harbour Unrue provides biographical information on Porter, traces her career as a reviewer, and links critical assumptions in the reviews to the themes and techniques of Porter's fiction.
Other scholars as well have regarded Porter's critical reviews as valuable tools both for analyzing the fiction and for constructing a portrait of Porter the artist, primarily because Porter produced so little fiction (three collections of short stories and novellas, "Flowering Judas", "The Leaning Tower", and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider", and a novel, "Ship of Fools"). In the preface to the first collection of her nonfiction writings, "The Days Before", Porter herself urged readers to look closely at her nonfiction, for there they would discover "the shape, direction and connective tissue of a continuous, central interest and preoccupation of a lifetime". Porter's scope as a reviewer was broad. Because she had lived in Mexico City during the revolution, had known Diego Rivera, and had studied "primitive" Mexican art, she was often called on to review books on Mexican art and on the revolution. Porter also reviewed many books by or about women.
Her reviews of the "Short Novels of Colette" and Katherine Anthony's translation of Catherine the Great's memoirs are particularly noteworthy for her comments about women artists and her expression of admiration for women who flout traditional roles.
by "Nielsen BookData"