Word: mallones
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...Thomas Mallon...
...book published in 1982, Toni Bentley, a dancer for the New York City Ballet, made vivid the ecstasy and stress of working and living under George Balanchine's rule: it is a very direct and involving book--one which, Mallon suggests, helps Bentley "to find the way back to her art." Unfortunately, in the compiler's one-page synopsis that includes a few brief quotations, the force of this particular diary is all but lost and in a few awkward words the reader is abruptly shuttled across one of the many connecting bumps in Mallon's text and is confronted...
...problem, then, is in Mallon's presentation of what remains a fine and broad selection of diarists and journal-keepers. There is an impressive span in the book from the expected to the unknown, from Samuel Pepys and Dorothy Wordsworth to the diaries of ordinary pioneer women undergoing extraordinary hardships. This host of diarists is sifted into sections--one for prisoners, one for travelers, one for creators, and the like. The resulting juxtapositions could be enlightening and provocative and could make for an absorbing book. Unfortunately, Mallon's text leaves us without any resounding insight into the curious business...
...MALLON'S DISC-JOCKEY style of tour through his chosen diarists is amply anticipated by an introduction that rambles on (without any of that great Rambler Samuel Johnson's wit) about the progress of his own diary and his own rather banal generalizations about the practice of keeping a diary. Also included by way of introduction are generous quotations from his own diaries, such as a passage which he agrees is "pretty self-pitying stuff" written while Mallon lived near Harvard Yard and was "tired out from a semester of trying to learn Greek." It seems quite inappropriate that...
Some readers may enjoy Thomas Mallon's light tour-guide approach. For those who do not, the book is nevertheless redeemed by its superb selection of diarists from all walks of life. In his extensive reading of the obscure as well as the class.., Mallon has stumbled upon some marvelous passages and some intriguing characters. His book is "populated by writers, dancers, madmen, statesman, lovers, assassins, philosophers, housewives, soldiers, and children"--all in all a rich host o: "selves." It is a pity that they are all sapped and leveled by the author's uninteresting prose. We can only hope...