Fans will delight in another window into Codrescu's shrewd and quirky mind - his confession of AOL addiction, his thoughts...
Novelist, poet, professor, and NPR commentator Codrescu (Hail Babylon!, 1998, etc.) brings his eclectic interests and unique slant to good, evil, and much, much more in this millennial collection of his latest essays.
Using Armageddon as a launching pad, Codrescu first puts "the ubiquitous devil of our secular culture" under a microscope, and he breaks down humanity's doomsday believers, from "paramilitary paranoids" to "optimistic New Agers." The essays that follow are loosely organized around the theme of evil, and as Codrescu comments on American, immigrant, and emigrant life, he uncovers its darker sides, toughing on the ills of social amnesia, hypocrisy, and government corruption. Romanian-born and now a New Orleans resident, Codrescu takes his readers from the heat of the French Quarter to the icy streets of Transylvania, from Kosovo to Chicago, and to cyberspace and back. His outlook is that of a cautious and comical pessimist, and he argues, "Everybody in the world feels sick and it's only Prozac, work, Bill Gates, and the media that keep us from realizing it." His tone, however, is not portentous or depressing but rather is accented with his distinctive brand of sarcasm and softened by his memories of childhood. Many of the essay topics fall in a gray area between highbrow academia and popular culture. Thus, Elvis, Carl Jung, The Unabomber, Allen Ginsberg, the Pied Piper, and Dante are among the men, sinister and otherwise, making appearances within his text. Yet too often Codrescu exercises a license to drift into murky waters. An essay on autobiography declares, "The memoir is a skeumorph," while in a more postmodern piece he insists, "Virtuality is television squared."
Fans will delight in another window into Codrescu's shrewd and quirky mind - his confession of AOL addiction, his thoughts on being a grandfather, and his strange yet convincing argument "Against Synchronicity." Others, though, may become lost in the many obscurities.Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-20294-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000
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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