xterminal's review
3.0
Books like this oughta get published more often. Problem is, there's no market at all for smaller critical essays (this one weighs in at under a hundred pages). Not that there's any market for the godawful thousand-page tomes full of unintelligible jargon that pass for literary criticism these days, but at least, sitting on the shelf, they make you look like you know something.
More's the pity. Hindus gives us an overview of Reznikoff that's not long enough to be boring and places Reznikoff's writing in the perspective of his life and times. It's an easy read compared to most critical works, and for the most part it's content to just let Reznikoff's own writing speak for itself.
That may be the essay's main weakness. For such a short piece, Hindus seems to rely a little too much on Reznikoff speaking for himself, and sometimes the quotes seem to outweigh the original contributions. Still, it's a good primer for anyone not familiar with one of America's great twentieth-century authors (and if you're not familiar with him, you should be). ***
More's the pity. Hindus gives us an overview of Reznikoff that's not long enough to be boring and places Reznikoff's writing in the perspective of his life and times. It's an easy read compared to most critical works, and for the most part it's content to just let Reznikoff's own writing speak for itself.
That may be the essay's main weakness. For such a short piece, Hindus seems to rely a little too much on Reznikoff speaking for himself, and sometimes the quotes seem to outweigh the original contributions. Still, it's a good primer for anyone not familiar with one of America's great twentieth-century authors (and if you're not familiar with him, you should be). ***
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