Week ending September 27, 2013
Allan, John. Berthold Lubetkin: Architecture and the Tradition of Progress. Artifice. 2013. 632p. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781907317149. $59.95. ARCH
A practicing architect, Allan first produced this 600-page, ten-pound volume almost 20 years ago, and, by his own account in the preface, he saw little reason to revise the text, other than to reassess the value of Berthold Lubetkin’s postwar housing blocks. British modernism, unlike the more identifiable expressions in the Netherlands or in Russia, is a hybrid phenomenon, and Lubetkin (1901–90) is perhaps its most noted exponent. Having experienced the Bolshevik Revolution and studied in France, Lubetkin combined the sculptural form of the former with the more planar and seemingly weightless volumes of the latter (as epitomized by Le Corbusier)—all in the context of the “politicised artist.” Divided into four sections with assonant titles (“Expectation,” “Exposition,” “Exile,” “Encore”), the book takes an overall chronological approach. At many points along the way, the author reminds us of the social responsibility of the architect—and how Lubetkin, with his Marxist roots, embodied that aim. At the same time, through numerous sketches, plans, sections, and graphic analyses of elevations, the author deepens our understanding of Lubetkin’s contributions. Most of the illustrations are black and white, with a signature of exceptionally fine and detailed color photographs toward the back.
Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. Seal Pr. Oct. 2013. 224p. ed. by Sari Botton. ISBN 9781580054942. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9781580054959. LIT
Jumping off writer Joan Didion’s well-known essay “Goodbye to All That,” in which she describes her arrival in New York and the reasons for her later decision to leave, editor Botton (editorial director, TMI [Too Much Information!] Project), with Seal Press (dedicated to publishing books “By Women for Women”), here anthologizes 28 essays by women authors including Ann Hood, Dani Shapiro, and Emma Straub, among others, outlining why they came to New York, how they became disillusioned with living in the Big Apple, and how they escaped by moving to other places in both the United States and Europe. A sameness in tone exists in many of the narratives, as most of the women came to New York with ambitions of becoming a writer—some succeeded, others failed—and several experienced setbacks in the form of substance abuse, failed relationships, etc. Few returned to the city after they left. One standout piece is the wonderfully written short essay by Cheryl Strayed (Wild), which evolves from horrific to moving. A recurring theme is how New York itself has changed—from a dangerous, graffiti-ridden and low-rent metropolis to a place that is safer but also more expensive and homogenized.
Business consultant, novelist, and biographer Martin (Beyond Belief; The Man Himself: A Life of Jonathan Swift) seeks to reconceive the importance and impact of the work of English author Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe) in light of his assertion that historians have been wrong about both the identity of Defoe’s father and the writer’s birthdate. Defoe was a complex man about whom there is a dearth of biographical detail, and Martin takes particular interest in Defoe’s secrecy and obfuscation around his personal life. He hypothesizes that Defoe’s fiction is a recasting of events from his own life and uses Freudian interpretation and the work of Leo Abse (The Bi-sexuality of Daniel Defoe) to interesting effect. The research to support the idea that Defoe deliberately concealed the first 15 years of his life has been extensive, and while Martin makes an interesting case, he ultimately fails to shed significant new light on Defoe’s literature based on this thesis. Novices interested in Defoe’s life and work might do better to start with John J. Richetti’s The Life of Daniel Defoe or Richard West’s Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures or Maximillian E. Novak’s more scholarly Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions; His Life and Ideas.