The courage of turtles
Subtitle: fifteen essays about compassion, pain, and love ...
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1970
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 239
Description: "Journalism, especially personal or polemical journalism, is a popular vehicle these days. Yet not many real essays are being written--pieces which have no occasion except the author's desire to speak at his convenience as he wishes, linking together memories and observations--perhaps because the form depends as much upon discipline as upon passion. Edward Hoagland's essays are sometimes autobiographical, and usually quite personal, but several are also about events and places; in any case, none is limited to the subject that it begins with. Here he writes about tigers, girl friends, show business, his father, and becoming a father, and the problem of how we treat each other in a world growing steadily more overcrowded. Although he writes painfully and eloquently about matters like stuttering, divorce and death, he tends to seize on subjects he rejoices in--the Vermont woods, county fairs, cowboys, street life, and harbor happenings. He offers even a kind of plan for survival, among other things, for he is a man seeking roots and foundation rocks. Mr. Hoagland is a stylist, a writer of low-keyed sagacity and versatility, and it is a delight to spend time inside his mind. Drawn from magazines as different as The Village Voice, Harper's, and Commentary, The Courage of Turtles contains some of the best English prose being written today."--Jacket.
Table of contents: title: Author's note.; title: The problem of the golden rule.; title: The courage of turtles.; title: The war in the woods.; title: The elephant trainer and the man on stilts.; title: Knights and squires: for love of the tugs.; title: On not being a Jew.; title: The draft card gesture.; title: Books, movies, the news.; title: The threshold and the jolt of pain.; title: The lapping, itchy edge of love.; title: Violence, violence.; title: Blitzes and holding actions.; title: The moose on the wall.; title: Americana, etc.; title: Home is two places.