The cows in Stella Gibbons's immortal 'Cold Comfort Farm' are named Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless, and that more or less is the verdict on 'Ocean's Kingdom,' the wildly hyped and wildly uninteresting collaboration between Peter Martins and Paul McCartney.
Robert Gottlieb
Controversy sells books.
It's always fascinating - and sometimes a little disquieting - when two first-rate critics violently disagree.
'Beloved Renegade' is a meditation on Walt Whitman, on tenderness, on dying.
Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there's anything wrong with 'Casino Royale.' But 'Happy Feet' - written and directed by George Miller - is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can't resist straying into the Inspirational.
When December comes, can 'The Nutcracker' be far behind? No, it can't - not in America, anyway.
'Eclipse' is overlong and overly self-conscious, but it isn't a fake or a zero; it just gets exhausting. It raises a crucial question: 'When does Concept morph into Gimmick?'
I have no problem selling ebooks for authors directly as an agent, but partnering with them is another matter.
In my view, the ebook world for both established and new authors is a terrific new and exciting format. It is a format that will bring forth many new writers to publishing.
You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series of unresolved murder mysteries; as the manifestation of one woman's peculiar psychic life; as a lesson in forensics; as a metaphor for the fate of women; as a photographic study.
You may feel that Peter Martins' 'Beauty' is too compressed and inexpressive, but it's loyal to the text.
'River of Light,' to a dense but powerful score commissioned from Charles Wuorinen and with ravishing lighting by Mark Stanley, has depth and resonance.
Blood is the leitmotif of 'Black Swan.'
What 'War and Peace' is to the novel and 'Hamlet' is to the theater, Swan Lake' is to ballet - that is, the name which to many people stands for and sums up an art form.
Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vine, we wake up after the dog days of August with something to look at.
Either 'Deuce Coupe' has aged badly, or I have. I suspect it's the latter.
Jodi Melnick is hotly self-absorbed. Her onstage musicians are much too loud, and like so many narcissistic performers, she goes on much too long: She's interested in herself; why wouldn't we be?
Without a Prospero-Caliban relationship to balance the Prospero-Ariel one, 'The Tempest' loses much of its resonance.
Most famous stage actors tactfully fade away.
We know that Diana Vishneva is a phenomenon of strength and style, and she certainly has earned the right to stretch her talents as best she can.
It's a crapshoot, publishing.
'Ocean's Kingdom' is a fairy story with no subtext, no resonance - it's not about anything except its water-logged plot.
You have to surrender to a book. If you do, when something in it seems to be going askew, you are wounded. The more you have surrendered to a book, the more jarring its errors appear.
As an editor, I have to be tactful, of course.
Diana Vishneva is not only a magnificent dancer but a magnificent actress - no one works harder or understands more.
One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?
The first movement ballerina should be a paradigm of strength and authority.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. When a ballet company spends a lot of money on gimmicky pieces, it's stuck with them for a while - they have to earn their keep.
What makes a publishing house great? The easy answer is the consistency with which it produces books of value over a lengthy period of time.
Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, having produced fifteen novels, many of which can confidently be called great, as well as having accomplished outstanding work in activities into which his insatiable need to expend his vast energies - to achieve, to prevail - carried him: journalism, editing, acting, social reform.
There is no consolation for anyone in the Scott Peterson story, and no final illumination.
Charles Dickens left us fifteen novels, and in an ideal world, everyone would read all of them.
'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and at different heights, some of them at times down below the dancers' chest level.
I hated Matthew Bourne's 'Swan Lake' when it first turned up, and then when it was televised, and then when it returned.
We all need each other in publishing to make publishing work for authors in a variety of formats now and in the future. Anyone who thinks publishers don't bring anything to the table has a very narrow view and lack of knowledge about the industry as a whole.
No agent/publisher is in a position to create across a spectrum of media and distribution what major publishers can accomplish for authors.
The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes, he's particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities.
Shakespeare has always been up for grabs, and choreographers have every right to use him any way they choose.
With literary fiction, generally a film maker falls in love with a book. In commercial fiction, it's a producer or studio falling in love with a book they can make into a movie with worldwide appeal.
Writing happened to me. I didn't decide to start writing or to be a writer. I never wanted to be a writer.
I don't like writing - it's so difficult to say what you mean. It's much easier to edit other people's writing and help them say what they mean.
In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about.
Like all editors, I assume, I'm a reactor.
Ballet is like any other art form in that we all start out knowing nothing about it.
The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is domestic and small scale, so it's great to sit up close. But the second act features elaborate scenery and choreography, which are better to observe from a distance.
Dance stories, unlike those in opera, are usually simple.
If Tom Clancy didn't write any Op-Centers, he would be $60 million less rich.
Remember: TV is a format, film is a format, and books are a format.
We see a new generation of Russian authors who are not divided from their Western contemporaries either culturally or philosophically.
You don't have to be a member of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute to figure out that when you title a memoir of your parents 'Them,' you're performing an act of distancing.
