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STROLLS WITH PUSHKIN

Name: STROLLS WITH PUSHKIN
Author: Abram Tertz
ISBN: 0-300-05279-0

by Abram Tertz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 16, 1994

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Fabulously amusing mock-academic flight of fantastic literary criticism about Russia's beloved national poet, Aleksandr Pushkin, written in 1966-67 by Tertz/Andrei Sinyavsky (Goodnight!, 1989; Little Jinx, 1992, etc.) while serving the first of seven years in a Soviet labor camp. When this finally saw light in Russia in 1989, Russian critics were outraged. Pushkin (1799-1837) was not only a Russian Negro but also the first ``civilian'' to make a name for himself in Russian literature, and Tertz (Sinyavsky's pen name when having fun) takes Pushkin down ten more pegs or so, calling him ``not a diplomat, not a secretary, a nobody. A goldbricker. A deadbeat...'' His Pushkin is a trickster of letters who made his name by avoiding all literary pretenses, writing lines of any length he pleased, and carrying on like an all-male puff or lazy dandy who had special insight into what the ladies needed—and gave it to them in verse, as well as in life. Later, he grew tired of his own spectacle and secretly yearned to be more common. Says Tertz: ``Since youth he had regarded his black otherness in society, inherited from his grandfather Ibrahim, with great enthusiasm, rightly viewing his wild pranks as a sign of the elemental force raging within him...[H]is Negro blood took him back to the primordial sources of art, to nature and myth.'' Tertz is especially keen on Pushkin's eroticism: ``When you read Pushkin, you get the feeling that he has some bond with women, that he is at home with women...It must be that flirts are somehow akin to women's aery composition, because of which they unconsciously want everything both within and around them to fly and flutter (isn't that...the origin of the skirt and other muslin and gauzy zephyrs of the feminine toilette?)...Women involuntarily sniff out in the flirt a brother in spirit.'' Read Tertz before the long essay by co-translator Nepomnyashchy.

Pub Date: Feb. 16, 1994

ISBN: 0-300-05279-0

Page Count: 177

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.