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January
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Weekly Book Recommendations
Updates from The ProsenPeople and JBC news
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Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist
Harriet Hyman Alonso
Wesleyan University Press, 2012. 332 pp. $28.95
Known as "Broadway's social conscience," E. Y. Harburg (1896-1981) wrote the lyrics to the standards, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," "April in Paris," and "It's Only a Paper Moon," as well as all of the songs in The Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow." Harburg always included a strong social and political component to his work, fighting racism, poverty, and war. Interweaving close to fifty interviews (most of them previously unpublished), over forty lyrics, and a number of Harburg's poems, Harriet Hyman Alonso enables Harburg to talk about his life and work. He tells of his early childhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, his public school education, how the Great Depression opened the way to writing lyrics, and his work on Broadway and Hollywood, including his blacklisting during the McCarthy era. Finally, but most importantly, Harburg shares his commitment to human rights and the ways it affected his writing and his career path. Includes an appendix with Harburg's key musicals, songs, and films.
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Oral Pleasure: Kosinski as Storyteller
Jerzy Kosinski; Barbara Tepa Lupack, ed.
Grove Press, 2012. 432 pp. $27.50
Oral Pleasure is a collection of interviews, lectures, and transcriptions of media appearances from the legendary literary figure, Jerzy Kosinski. Compiled by his late widow, Kiki, most of the pieces here are published for the first time. These texts bring sharper focus to the themes in his works, making this strikingly erratic individual more accessible. They provide an uncensored portrait of the writer plagued by scandal, whose authenticity was challenged by fierce accusations of plagiarism regarding his seminal novel, The Painted Bird--suspicion that shadowed his career.
The material covers different aspects of Kosinski's eventful life, from his thoughts on Poland and the Holocaust to his experiences with acting and television. He expounds on the difficulties of writing under a totalitarian government and the importance of freedom of speech. He discusses the fine line between fiction and autobiography, the prominent role sex played in his writing and life, the philosophical importance of violence in his novels, and his controversial statements on Jewish identity.
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