Our age's angsts distilled to a wrenching clarity by a writer who knows how to look—and what to look for.
French novelist/memoirist Ernaux (A Frozen Woman, 1995, etc.) turns conversations overheard and people and places observed into a disturbingly effective documentary record of modern life.
Moving outside Paris into one of those "new towns'' with fabricated city centers and enclosed malls featuring vast stores, Ernaux, trying to understand a place with no past, began keeping a journal. In it she "sought to describe reality as through the eyes of a photographer,'' trying always to avoid any subjective judgments or reactions, though, inevitably, some people or situations reminded her of her own life and family. A cool writer with an eye for the telling detail, Ernaux collected a variety of precise observations and insights in places as varied as a butcher shop and a Parisian lingerie boutique. Some of the entries, which begin in 1985 and end in 1992, are nearly a page long, others only one or two pithy sentences. Ernaux's France is a gritty, tough- minded place where superstores are the new cathedrals, subways have replaced commuter trains ("you enter Paris along underground tunnels, amid artificial lights, not knowing where you are''), and beggars offer a jarring contrast to the omnipresent consumerism. She watches people on the streets, in the stores, on the subway: a young woman unwrapping her purchases and happily admiring them; a homeless man unself-consciously examining his belly and adjusting his socks; and a mother and daughter in sweat suits and white socks, talking loudly as they "act out the intimacy of a mother-to-daughter relationship which they see as enviable.'' Even the most mundane activities are, for Ernaux, portents of a rapidly changing world increasingly removed from the one she knew as a child and young adult.
Our age's angsts distilled to a wrenching clarity by a writer who knows how to look—and what to look for.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1996
ISBN: 1-888363-31-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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