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ETHER DAY

Name: ETHER DAY
Author: Julie Fenster
ISBN: 0-06-019523-1

THE STRANGE TALE OF AMERICA’S GREATEST MEDICAL DISCOVERY AND THE HAUNTED MEN WHO MADE IT

by Julie Fenster ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 2001

Despite occasional repetitions: a thoroughly compelling account, well told and well situated in its larger context.

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American Heritage columnist Fenster examines the tangled tale of the invention of anesthesia.

Dava Sobel and Janet Gleeson have established a new model for authors working in the history of science—i.e., find some aspect of everyday life that we take for granted but whose invention involved a complicated story (preferably with something sinister attached to it), sprinkle with intelligent social history (to place it in a larger context), write well, and stir. Fenster has adhered to this formula nicely and the resulting work is, like those of her predecessors, a model of sound popular science. It begins with a simple question: Who was the father of painless surgery, as first practiced at Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16, 1846? The three claimants to the title are as dissimilar as any men of the era could possibly be. Horace Wells was a pious and earnest dentist who became interested in the possibilities of nitrous oxide as a way of rendering patients insensible; William T.G. Morton, who learned dentistry from Wells, was a semi-literate con man; and Charles Jackson was one of the most prominent men of science in Boston—an arrogant and rigid figure who claimed that Samuel Morse stole the idea of telegraphy from him. This trio became locked in a struggle to claim credit for the invention of anesthesia, a struggle that led all three to destruction. What each seems to have lost sight of is the importance of the advance itself; but Fenster is particularly good at reminding readers of the nightmare of surgery before anesthesia (she describes one operating room whose features included “hooks, rings and pulleys set into the wall to keep the patients in place during operations”). The cast of characters here is a rich one, including such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Samuel Colt, not to mention cameos by Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Henry David Thoreau. Fenster balances all the various elements of the tale admirably and writes with acerbic wit.

Despite occasional repetitions: a thoroughly compelling account, well told and well situated in its larger context.

Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2001

ISBN: 0-06-019523-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
RACE OF THE CENTURY
by Julie Fenster

- BOOK REVIEW
MAVERICKS, MIRACLES, AND MEDICINE
by Julie Fenster

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.