THE MEMORY OF BIRDS IN TIMES OF REVOLUTION

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THE MEMORY OF BIRDS IN TIMES OF REVOLUTION

Name: THE MEMORY OF BIRDS IN TIMES OF REVOLUTION
Author: Breyten Breytenbach
ISBN: 0-15-100168-5

ESSAYS

by Breyten Breytenbach ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 12, 1996

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An outdated, awkward collection of essays on art and politics from one of South Africa's great gadflies. Afrikaans poet, activist, former prisoner, and exile, Breytenbach (Return to Paradise, 1993, etc.) plunges into the cauldron of South African politics with brave abandon, criticizing both left and right, Mandela and De Klerk with equal, brutal honesty. His several ``Open Letters to Nelson Mandela''—though they have a faint odor of self-importance and self-righteousness- -are blunt and scrupulous warnings about the seductions and corruptions of power. In other, less political essays, Breytenbach steps back to consider the grand old hallmarks of the artist, at least as defined by Joyce: silence, exile, and cunning. But even here politics obtrude, as does language. While he may be a past master in verse (the few interpolated poems here are among the volume's bright spots), Breytenbach's prose is a real stumbling block, an unhealthy combination of French lit-crit abstraction and Afrikaner earthiness: ``No wonder that so many writers have withdrawn to the campuses, there like alienated baboons to deconstruct, to eviscerate and sniff at the innards of our art-the phonemes and the signifiers.'' Nor are Breytenbach's ideas startlingly original; they are a bland stew of third-world liberationist posturings, sauced with obscurantist theory, Buddhist blatherings, and overused quotes about art from the usual suspects. Because most of these essays were written in the early 1990s, when apartheid was still in place, their critiques are almost painfully out of date. And while the essays' honesty and courage are to be commended, they lack the saving humanism and insight of, for example, Orwell's essays from the '30s, qualities that would have kept them otherwise readable and trenchant. (Author tour)

Pub Date: Feb. 12, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100168-5

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

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

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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

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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

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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.