What do you think?
Rate this book
Great Topics of the World
A collection of personal essays explores everyday traumas and triumphs and draws on memories and events from the author's life and that of his family.
- GenresEssays
93 pages, Hardcover
First published January 19, 1995
About the author
Albert Goldbarth
87 books45 followersAlbert Goldbarth is an American poet born January 31, 1948 in Chicago. He is known for his prolific production, his gregarious tone, his eclectic interests and his distinctive 'talky' style. He has been a Guggenheim fellow and won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1991 and 2001, the only poet to receive the honor two times. He also won the Mark Twain Award for Humorous Poetry, awarded by the Poetry Foundation, in 2008.
Goldbarth received his BA from the University of Illinois in 1969 and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1971. He is currently distinguished professor of Humanities at Wichita State University, and he teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Converse College.
Goldbarth received his BA from the University of Illinois in 1969 and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1971. He is currently distinguished professor of Humanities at Wichita State University, and he teaches in the Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Converse College.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 14, 2010
Complaining about Albert Goldbarth’s style makes me feel like Cotton Mather critiquing the town eccentrics of Salem. There’s a meanness about the enterprise, a pinched and puritanical approach that I do not like in myself. In fact, it makes me happy to happen across an Albert Goldbarth poem or prose piece in a literary magazine. He has a wide-ranging free range curiosity and vast array of raw facts that makes his work always informative and entertaining. There are few contemporary writers I more look forward to encountering…
And yet… I never come away from a Goldbarth feast with a full belly somehow, like the old saying about Chinese food. And sometimes the feast itself can be a bit of a struggle – the whoops and huzzahs and adjectival piles can make the reading process a tiresome one whenever Goldbarth’s organizational abilities get tangled up in their own exuberance and cunning. When he’s at his best, when his own excesses are somewhat under control, Goldbarth can be a heartbreaker. But too often his affects are overwhelmed by the Mad Hatter’s Encyclopedia approach to history, and his own untoward confessional tendencies (nowhere else but in a Goldbarth piece will a college girlfriend’s pubic hair be described as a red thatch…or something like that). Funny stuff, most of it – almost all of it in fact – but long stretches of it make my ribs feel bruised, empurpled from the elbow jabs and the forced, red-thatched intimacies.
There are a couple of depressing factual/editorial/typographical errors in the book. Austria sends an ultimatum and ultimately declares war on “Siberia” – Siberia is not a country, of course and World War I started with Austria attacking Serbia (or Servia as it was often spelt in those days). The poet H.D.’s surname is misspelled “Dolittle” (there is supposed to be a pair o’ o’s in it). Not a huge deal, of course, but these sorts of errors are deflating and introduce a whiff of doubt.
And yet… I never come away from a Goldbarth feast with a full belly somehow, like the old saying about Chinese food. And sometimes the feast itself can be a bit of a struggle – the whoops and huzzahs and adjectival piles can make the reading process a tiresome one whenever Goldbarth’s organizational abilities get tangled up in their own exuberance and cunning. When he’s at his best, when his own excesses are somewhat under control, Goldbarth can be a heartbreaker. But too often his affects are overwhelmed by the Mad Hatter’s Encyclopedia approach to history, and his own untoward confessional tendencies (nowhere else but in a Goldbarth piece will a college girlfriend’s pubic hair be described as a red thatch…or something like that). Funny stuff, most of it – almost all of it in fact – but long stretches of it make my ribs feel bruised, empurpled from the elbow jabs and the forced, red-thatched intimacies.
There are a couple of depressing factual/editorial/typographical errors in the book. Austria sends an ultimatum and ultimately declares war on “Siberia” – Siberia is not a country, of course and World War I started with Austria attacking Serbia (or Servia as it was often spelt in those days). The poet H.D.’s surname is misspelled “Dolittle” (there is supposed to be a pair o’ o’s in it). Not a huge deal, of course, but these sorts of errors are deflating and introduce a whiff of doubt.
March 8, 2008
If you've ever read any of Mr. Goldbarth's poetry, you know he possesses a quirky diction and an erudite vocabulary, but the true magic of his writing is how he takes those two qualities and makes accessible, rhythmic lines that are a joy to read and re-read. I was pleased to find this magic in this book of linked essays, which brilliantly mine pop culture effluvia, from the fleas the painter Vermeer had to wrestle with to George Herriman's comics to Buck Rogers and back, to make us look at the world around us with wonder and awe. His ability to take seemingly disparate ideas and explore them until their parallels are evident proves page after page the links we don't often see in humanity. But most important, these essays urge us to stay in the present, "to be attentive, to the smallest rising moon above a cuticle, to the lilliput taj mahal of blue at the center of any red flame, to the slimmest syllable love or politics utters," (27), because, Goldbarth convincingly pleas, this is the only way to remind ourselves we're alive and well and connected in this sometimes crazy and lonely world.
December 1, 2008
Awesome. Any work that combines fleas, Von Leeuwenhoek, and metallic space toys from the 1950s is bound to be a winner. There's really no explanation on what this book is about, but the prose is beautiful and I learned a bit, to boot.
March 3, 2014
If there is a better essay than "delft" please, let me read it.
April 28, 2014
The writing, in general, is a little too clever and frenetic for me, but there's also something great on every page. The last essay, "The Future," is quite beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews