The good, gray Trillin hangs up his prose pistols and rides forth as Poet in his seventeenth book, here collecting three years of comic political verse for The Nation. Best known for his Americana and true-crime stories in The New Yorker, for his fabulous food reportage from Kansas City, Louisiana, and elsewhere, and for Remembering Denny, his 1993 bestseller about a friend who committed suicide, Trillin may be a national treasure for his journalism as well as for his two witty one-man shows, which prompted Mel Gussow to dub him ``the Buster Keaton of performance humorists.'' Must doggerel be crude, unpolished, a dog's verse? Though the opening pages of his yappings leave something to be desired, his skills increase with use, although Trillin's funniest moment isn't poetry; it's his complaint about losing Alexander Haig as a fit object of ridoggericule as he watches Haig, like Shane on his white horse, ride out of town, leaving behind little Brandon de Trillin shouting, ``Haig! Haig! Please don't go, Haig! We need you, Haig! Come back, Haig!'' Trillin's father, a Kansas City restaurateur, devised rhymes for his menus (``Let's go, warden, I'm ready to fry/My last request was Mrs. Trillin's pie''), lending young Trillin a rhymer's background. Aside from a bouquet of general doggerel (``New movies, which are mostly dumb, are in the summer/Even dumber''), his subjects, not always treated fairly, he admits, include George Bush, the Reagans, Ross Perot, Mrs. Thatcher, Gorbachev, Clarence Thomas, Clark Clifford, Arafat, Clinton, Gore, Kuwait, and Saddam (``This guy who often said he'd smash us flat in one battle/Turned out to be what Texans call all hat and no cattle''). Let's call it fiddle faddle/between wisdom and a baby's rattle.
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-374-13552-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
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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