Stanley Appelbaum

Just the thought of a poster subscription series makes me wonder why no one does this today. At the turn of the previous century, with Art Nouveau in full bloom, Victorian still prominent, and Art Deco hinted as the future, posters blossomed. They were most decidedly worth receiving in the mail – four a month, for a full series of 240. Mucha, Toulouse-Lautrec, Grasset and countless others, made their living in advertising.

And here they are, in order, numbered, with stats about the artists, show more and an overview. The artists were breaking out of the stifling Victorian mould. They were no longer restricted to geometric frameworks. Their subjects could be facing away, playing with the text, woven into the title, or have nothing whatever to do with the product being advertised. The artists made up new fonts like there was no tomorrow. For centuries, there had been only a handful of fonts outside the decorous initial letters of religious text chapters. Here, now, for all to see, was open competition to attract the eye of the passer-by. And in as ultra-modern a fashion as possible.

It was an exuberant era, beautifully assembled in this Dover collection for all to see in outsized pages.

David Wineberg show less

I always find it difficult to review an anthology because I tend to see them as collections of individual stories rather than collections of individual stories. I never like all the stories in an anthology, and to be honest, would it be a good thing if I did? Would that mean all the stories are fantastic? Or would it mean that the anthology lacked a certain scope and never ventured beyond my taste or comfort zone.

That said, I didn't hate any of these stories, and found myself engaged by show more them more often than not. I read them in the Spanish, while occasionally checking my understanding or finding new vocabulary in the translations. This anthology suited that purpose fairly well. There is no glossary, and the stories have not been simplified for a beginner/intermediate reader. I'm grateful that they haven't been simplified! The layout of the book was carefully planned so cross-checking the languages against each other was easy, although the translation was by no means slavish to the original. As a matter of fact, Appelbaum added some delightful humor to the cancion in Portillo's "Unclaimed Watch." The stories date back to the 1800s and the first three or even four stories were definitely outside of my comfort zone! The vocabulary, and I suspect even sentence structure, of the modern Mexican short story has changed since then. Once I got to the latter stories, the language switched to a style I was better able to manage.

The first two stories, despite the language difficulty, were okay. Jose Maria Boa Barcena's "Lanchitas" is a well-told version of a ghost story I've heard a few too many times. Perhaps this story is the origin. Once I got to Altamirano's "Antonia" though, I read these stories voraciously. "Antonia" convincingly describes the ridiculous emotional turmoil of first love, and also describes a tumultuous time in Mexican history. Portillo's "Unclaimed Watch" is brilliant, and the final work, de Compo's "El fusilado" is as chilling as anything Shirley Jackson ever wrote. Skip Gutierrez Najera's "Juan el Organista" though, unless you are into Gothic with a capital G. It's beautifully written, but the plot is a bit heavy handed for my tastes.

On the whole, quite a good read for anyone interested in Mexican literature. The translations too are well enough done to satisfy if you aren't able to navigate the Spanish. show less

Pope has a fascinating way of describing the human mindset as well as tackling those things as well as people, culture, society, our education, how we interact with others, religion, as well as lots of other things and 'attacks' them in a satirical way that makes one truly think about these subjects. And on top of these, Pope does it through poem (with occasional rhyming), rather than through prose like Orwell or Vonnegut (or like through visual media like modern satirists - South Park, Rick show more and Morty, BoJack Horseman, Futurama, Simpsons, etc, etc, etc.).

Worth the educational read for everyone, and something to come back to multiple times in one's life for different perspectives of/at the text. show less

This is the kind of book I'm always currently reading, and one I never get tired of; yes, you can find these poems in beaucoups of textbook anthologies, but I like how this one edition focuses on, what I believe to be, the single most influential and greatest period of poetry. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and Keats are all there, and presented in such a way, that you don't feel like you're looking for an express way exit when you're three lanes away during the 4 o'clock rush hour. show more This is a good edition, and the poems are certainly accessible, and the book doesn't weigh heavier than the chasis on a 57 Chevy. God, I love "Tintern Abbey" ! show less