Biting account of the outer squalor and inner landscape of totalitarianism found in Albania, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam, and Cuba; by British psychiatrist and travel-writer Daniels (Coups and Cocaine, 1986, etc.), who in 1989 visited Communist states still refusing the pull toward democracy then engulfing the Soviet sphere. Straight away, writing of Marx and Lenin, Daniels trumpets his anti-Communist stance: ``Below the surface of their compassion for the poor seethed the molten lava of their hatred, which they had not enough self-knowledge to realize.'' He then presents a scathing travelogue of five different styles of inhumanity and deceit used with little success by five small Communist states to bring about ``The New Man.'' Among the chillingly absurd scenes of subjection he describes is a visit to North Korea's ``Department Store No. 1,'' shown to visitors to testify to consumer-goods production; Daniels says that the thousands of ``shoppers'' riding the escalators and browsing are not permitted to buy any of the shoddy goods on display but actually are paid (with a pair of ugly brown socks) to pretend to shop. In Romania under the Ceausescus, he says, shortages of necessities were planned to ``keep people's minds strictly on bread and sausages, and divert their energies to procuring them so that there was no time or inclination left for subversion.'' Amid the gray concrete housing blocks of Albania (where, Daniels claims, an entire family is sent to the mines if a member escapes the country), he finds a pyramidal museum devoted to founding dictator Enver Hoxha's life—a life, we're told, that has been rewritten by the government to make mediocrity appear godlike. A hardly unbiased study of the banality of evil under authoritarian Communism.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-517-58548-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
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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