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PARALLEL WORLDS

AN ANTHROPOLOGIST AND A WRITER ENCOUNTER AFRICA

An all-too-familiar memoir of cultural clash, misperceptions, and Western gall, told by a husband-and-wife team. Looking for a tribe to study for her dissertation, Gottlieb (Anthropology/University of Illinois) lighted on the Beng of the Ivory Coast rain forest. Despite their small numbers, the Beng offered everything that Gottlieb required: anonymity, animist religion, and isolation from the westernizing influence of the large West African cities where French is spoken and locals snack on baguettes instead of yams. Financed by the usual grants, equipped with the usual plethora of academic and tropical gear, and enduring the usual delays in acquiring permits, Gottlieb and Graham (Creative Writing/University of Illinois) finally arrived in the small village of KosangbÇ. They were to spend a year there, Gottlieb gathering material for her dissertation and Graham writing—he'd already published stories, including one in The New Yorker. In alternating sections here, the two record their experiences of settling into a village understandably hostile to their constant questions and very presence; of learning a new language and way of life; of dealing with emergencies as big as the near-fatal snakebite of a small child and as minor as the breaking of a taboo by sniffing the contents of cooking pots; and of coming to appreciate the intense belief in a hidden spirit world that inexorably shaped the villagers' daily lives. This is the ``invisible world'' that, Graham says, makes artists, as well as the villagers, experience ``parallel'' lives. But the couple finally understand that, despite their best intentions, inevitably infused with Western naivetÇ, there would always be ``some invisible border that prevented full citizenship in the Beng circle.'' Graham's words add a refreshing sensitivity to Gottlieb's more precise narrative, but neither author offers surprises, just the usual trials and tribulations of fieldwork. Still, for fans of the genre, a satisfying read.

Pub Date: April 7, 1993

ISBN: 0-517-58342-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

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

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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IN MY PLACE

From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-374-17563-2

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992

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