The Poet at the Piano: Portraits of Writers, Filmmakers, Playwrights and Other Artists at Work - Hardcover

New York Times book critic Kakutani here gathers 35 interviews, mostly published between 1979 and 1987, of people whose work has become part of the cultural vernacular. Included are David Byrne, Laurence Olivier, Joan Didion, Stephen Sondheim, John Updike and Mary McCarthy. Some of the "portraits" have the fleeting, ephemeral quality of old snapshotsvaluable as a record of an event, but now dated and fuzzy: Milan Kundera, for example, had just published The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and gives no hint that The Unbearable Lightness of Being is in the works; Steven Spielberg discusses his "breakthrough" film, E.T. Other intervieweesnotably Saul Bellow and Jorge Luis Borgessurvive the topical constraints of news reporting and speak of their craft in ways that cannot be ascribed to a specific time and place. For such moments, in which Kakutani offers the artists an opportunity to discuss elements of their creativity, even these hurried glimpses are worth a closer look.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Despite the brevity of these 36 4-to-14-page articles, mostly written for the New York Times , Kakutani's insightful intelligence prevents any trivialization of her varied subjects. The format threatens to make a Saul Bellow interchangeable with a Liza Minelli, but the author appropriately modulates her tone from respectful (Eli Wiesel) to playful (Steven Spielberg). A theory of the artist takes shape as she examines the interplay between life and creation, and her own rigorous aesthetics can be inferred from her praise for works that have the resonance of myth or legend. In a thoughtful introduction, Kakutani provides a valuable portrait of the interviewer at work. Something for everyone, but highlights include Joan Didion, John Updike, and Ingmar Bergman. Ethan Bumas, Fudan Univ., Shanghai
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.