Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993 TAG: 9303280221
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In this magnificently produced volume, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has given any architectural junkie more information on the famous buildings in the state than can be easily digested.
The book is not only a compilation of facts and figures and elevations, but a view into how certain elements of a structure were designed and fabricated. Historical antecedents of the illustrated buildings range from simple wood-frame shelters to gaudy Italian rococo palaces. The photographs and elevations offered (470 black-and-white illustrations and 31 color plates are included in the 472-page manuscript) reflect buildings from Monticello to the Medical College of Virginia to the Virginia State Penitentiary. Of special interest are unbuilt buildings, several failed designs for the Washington Monument and a failed design for the Virginia War Memorial.
A street address is included for each executed building, so one can see the designs fulfilled. All in all a beautifully presented reference volume that would grace any coffee table.
- LARRY SHIELD
The Best American Stories 1992.
Edited by Robert Stone. Katrina Kenison, Series Editor. Houghton Mifflin. $21.95.
It's hard to comment on "Best Of" collections because their very purpose (along with excellence, of course) is diversity. If such a collection is doing its job, there's no theme to recognize and appreciate, no single perspective to applaud, no particular voice to celebrate.
Which gives me, I suppose, my only real comment on 1992's "Best American Short Stories:" nine of the 20 stories included originally were published in The New Yorker.
Editor Robert Stone defends this by arguing, in his introduction, that "the days are past where there was such a thing as a `New Yorker story.' " Well, I guess that's what he thinks. Me, I think you could cut the angst in this volume with a knife. Of course, there are wonderful stories here; in particular Amy Bloom's "Silver Water" and Annick Smith's "It's Come To This" (both originally published in Story magazine) and Elizabeth Withrop's "The Golden Darters" (from American Short Fiction).
And the authors' comments on their stories' geneses and developments are instructive. (In a couple of cases, the authors' comments are more interesting than their stories!) But just once, couldn't a "Best Of" volume acknowledge, too, that life teems with absolute reality - beyond Metropolis?
- MONTY S. LEITCH
Larry Shield writes software.\ Monty S. Leitch is a columnist for the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB