bookshelf

MEDITATIONS FROM A MOVABLE CHAIR

Name: MEDITATIONS FROM A MOVABLE CHAIR
Author: Andre Dubus
ISBN: 0-679-43108-X

ESSAYS

by Andre Dubus ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 8, 1998

bookshelf

This affecting second collection of personal essays from contemporary master of the short story Dubus (Dancing After Hours, 1996, etc.) displays the distinctive direct and elegant style and often reflects the masculine Catholic worldview that inform much of his fiction. Dubus says he was an active runner and walker before he lost his left leg at the knee and the use of his right one in an accident on a highway just north of Boston in the late 1980s. That experience, his ensuing physical struggle, and the dissolution of his marriage were written about in his first volume of essays, Broken Vessels, in 1991. Here he achieves an intensely personalized effect because of his technique of filtering his experience through the perspective of his faith. It’s also a perspective of suffering, for Dubus continues to live every day in physical pain, as he explains in the at once bleak and redemptive closing piece, “Witness,” about his recent encounter with a woman who saw his accident. Dubus is commanding and graceful as ever on the physicality and spirituality of love between men and women; and he writes with humility and honesty of his decision to live life in a wheelchair after an agonizing period of physical therapy; and of the occasional moment of radiance, such as his being carried onto the lawn by his older children to play ball with his younger ones. Wisely or not, he includes a letter of complaint to Amtrak that turns into a tough if dulcet rant. At least one recent critic, while acknowledging his gifts, has identified in Dubus the tendency, before and after his injury, to locate the emotional center of his writing in an overly indulgent, if bittersweet, nostalgia for the irrecoverable past. Still Dubus is an American original, and his talent continues to surprise. (Author tour)

Pub Date: June 8, 1998

ISBN: 0-679-43108-X

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CROSS COUNTRY RUNNER
by Andre Dubus ; edited by Joshua Bodwell

- BOOK REVIEW
WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
by Andre Dubus ; edited by Joshua Bodwell

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WINTER FATHER
by Andre Dubus ; edited by Joshua Bodwell

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

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

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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.