More than you ever wanted to know about orange, purple, and green. With this sequel to his similarly styled The Primary Colors (1994), Theroux has, thankfully, almost reached the end of the rainbow. And while there are a few golden nuggets strewn about, there is also a great deal of dross. For the most part, Theroux doesn't so much write as endlessly accumulate—fact after fact after quote after reference; at times it's like a Nexis search from hell. Mentions of every appearance of purple in literature segue into purple foods, then circles back to literature via purple poems, and then it's on to purple costumes in the movies. Charitably, the effect Theroux is striving for might be called musical, but he hits all the wrong notes. His prose, in particular, tends to a garish purple, full of archaisms gleaned from Shakespeare 101: ``Orange is a bold, forritsome color.'' Though he tends to an eerie kind of death-of-the-author absence, he occasionally veers into obtrusiveness, including attacks on his critics, a churlish dig at the person who claimed to have discovered several plagiarisms in the last book, and leaden personal digressions: ``I myself have always loved too intensely, if intensely means inordinately, with the extended sense of having romantic overexpectations—in a purple way, I think.'' But Theroux is no literary greenhorn. There are a number of thoughtful observations and compelling juxtapositions. And his research is humblingly prodigious. What it reveals most of all is how similar the significances of colors can be. All three colors, for example, have sexual connotations, all three can describe dusk, rain, etc. Theroux also shows how fickle metaphorical meaning can be. Green can signify youth and vitality or, conversely, mold and staleness. The Romans even spoke of ``green'' old age. All in all, a colorless and cumbersome compendium.
Pub Date: April 25, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-4458-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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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