New York (Sun and Moon Classics, 5) [Paperback]

Djuna Barnes (Author), Alyce Barry (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Sun and Moon Classics, 5 | Publication Date: August 1989

Published in newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1931, these pieces conjure up a magical, mythical city as Djuna Barnes is rescued by firemen, tangoed across the floor of local dancehalls, lectured to by suffragists and force-fed by the police. A reporter of "real" life, she goes in search of Chinatown, takes a boat trip round Manhattan Island, pursues a stone-cutter in the Bronx, and breakfasts in Bohemia with women who smoke a hundred cigarettes a day and spill their wine. From Brooklyn's Walkabout Market to the Hippodrome Circus, from a Long Island Boxing Club to the Italian theatre in the Bowery, from the beach of Coney Island to Greenwich Village with its "recollections like ears filled with muted music", we are introduced to a New York of energy and eccentricity, a place where anything can happen and anything goes. The illustrations are by the author herself.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Literary-minded browsers will revel in these 42 articles published in New York newspapers between 1913 and 1919. Barnes (1892-1982) trains the novelistic powers later borne out in Nightwood on the individuals who infused the city with color and verve, and reports on social phenomena, from the tango palaces of Coney Island to an Upper East Side private club for domestic servants. Carrie Chapman Catt is seen conducting a seminar for feminists: "Organize yourself," she exhorts, "and the country will organize." Barnes eavesdrops on artistes in Greenwich Village and comments, "There are moments in the lives of all of us, or shall I say some of us, that must be lived in French." Visiting the radical Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World, she notes with characteristic amused irony that "Despair betrays itself in epigrams; when one wants to build, one begins to gather." And, demonstrating perhaps excessive zeal, Barnes persuades a doctor to force-feed her so that she may accurately describe the ordeals of the British suffragettes.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Lesser known now than many of her "Lost Generation" expatriate cohorts, Barnes was nevertheless a popular writer and personality in her time. This book contains many of the pieces she wrote for news dailies and magazines between 1911 and 1931. As you might have guessed from the title, the selections all center around New York. As LJ 's review of Barnes's 1985 Interviews ( LJ 5/1/85) commented, this volume too "will interest general readers as well as history and literature specialists."-- MR
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 354 pages
• Publisher: Sun & Moon Press (August 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940650991
• ISBN-13: 978-0940650992
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,359,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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4.0 out of 5 stars Young JOON-uh shows her stuff!, June 8, 2010

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This review is from: New York (Paperback)

This collection of 42 feature articles about New Yorkers reflects the journalistic years, 1913-1919, of Djuna Barnes (1892-1982). Her flair for writing is well demonstrated; admittedly she eventually sometimes spins off into such impressionism that it gives the reader pause. Her drawing, in 33 illustrations, can be loose, or Beardsley-like in its orientalism.

Among my favorite pieces: (1) Greenwich Village when it was really a big warren for struggling artists, and darkened rooms for smouldering denizens. (2) Coney Island for rambunctious families and for well-behaved dancers. (3) Opening day at school. (4) Veterans "in harness," old guys who stay on the job with dedication. (5) Decayed Chinatown. (6) Hippodrome circus. (7) Superstitions of some important New Yorkers. (8) Italian vaudeville house. (9) The many teashops off Fifth Avenue. (10) Djuna permits herself to be bound and force-fed through a tube in her nostril, like hunger-striking English suffragettes. (11) Djuna takes the boat trip around Manhattan, and the bus tour visiting Grant's Tomb. (12) Finally, WWI in progress, New York's War Camp Community Service takes care of our boys in uniform.

[In 1921, Djuna joined the American writers flocking to Paris, and turned to lesbian themes in her novel Nightwood (1936). Back in NY in 1940, her years of drinking and reclusiveness began.]