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The Art of Youth: Crane, Carrington, Gershwin, and the Nature of First Acts by Nicholas Delbanco
lakecake's review against another edition
3.0
I'm reviewing a copy received for free from Goodreads Giveaways.
This is a really interesting concept, and piggybacks off of the author's last work Lastingness (which I haven't read, but is interesting as well)--that book was about artists who have lasting careers, and this one was about genus that dies young. Besides Gershwin, the artists picked are kind of obscure--I couldn't name the guy who wrote The Red Badge of Courage off the top of my head before reading this, and in about 3 weeks I won't be able to do it again--but I think that actually added to the interest level. Because there's no "research" one can do into the author's theory--that is, that some forms of genius just can't last past a certain age--this was mostly good to me as a biographical study of the artists in question. I don't know how one would do research on this subject, but some kind of scientific backup for the theory would have been nice, speaking as a nerd. Also, the chapter on the author himself felt very self-indulgent and unnecessary, and I was REALLY distracted by all the semi-colons he decided to use in that one.
All in all, thought-provoking, but it could have used some back-up on the theory.
This is a really interesting concept, and piggybacks off of the author's last work Lastingness (which I haven't read, but is interesting as well)--that book was about artists who have lasting careers, and this one was about genus that dies young. Besides Gershwin, the artists picked are kind of obscure--I couldn't name the guy who wrote The Red Badge of Courage off the top of my head before reading this, and in about 3 weeks I won't be able to do it again--but I think that actually added to the interest level. Because there's no "research" one can do into the author's theory--that is, that some forms of genius just can't last past a certain age--this was mostly good to me as a biographical study of the artists in question. I don't know how one would do research on this subject, but some kind of scientific backup for the theory would have been nice, speaking as a nerd. Also, the chapter on the author himself felt very self-indulgent and unnecessary, and I was REALLY distracted by all the semi-colons he decided to use in that one.
All in all, thought-provoking, but it could have used some back-up on the theory.
chewdigestbooks's review against another edition
1.0
Premise was interesting, but the author was repetitive and full of pretension. He has the temerity to say that if Carrington had killed herself "just 3 weeks later" the sum total of the 3 subjects ages would have been 105 years. He called it "arithmetically cute", I call it offense and pointless.
chewdigestbooks's review against another edition
1.0
Premise was interesting, but the author was repetitive and full of pretension. He has the temerity to say that if Carrington had killed herself "just 3 weeks later" the sum total of the 3 subjects ages would have been 105 years. He called it "arithmetically cute", I call it offense and pointless.
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