Like its predecessors, Picked-Up Pieces (1975) and Hugging the Shore (1983), the title and author's introduction here again have Updike minimizing his critical exercises—while, at 928 pages, neglecting the reiteration of nary a one. As Updike ages and his eminence grows, there is a clear shift, though, in the focus of his nonfiction labors. Fewer book reviews, less polymathic curiosity; more speeches, long essays, a writer at the top of the heap legitimately looking more down than around. There's a kind of literary-autobiographical stock-taking secreted in three separate appreciations of John Cheever; as well as one in the book's finest extended essay, "How Does the Writer Imagine?," and a related essay, "Should Writers Give Lectures?" By now case-by-case books appear to interest Updike less than careers, a whole literary corpus; and thus he is especially revealing about Kafka, Melville, Calvino, and Roth (though about Roth, as well as Malamud, Updike remains flummoxed by and unable to quite understand Jewish identity in the absence of Christian-type assent). There are superb smaller pieces too—on Robert Pinget, on Russian glasnostera novels, on Bruce Chatwin, on Vargas Llosa. Updike's approvals and demurrers are never predictable, and this gives a fine pliability to his whole critical enterprise—only helped by his never-less-than-excellent prose. A necessary pleasure.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1991
ISBN: 0-679-40414-7
Page Count: 928
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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