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FINDING HIGHER GROUND

Name: FINDING HIGHER GROUND
Author: Catharine Savage Brosman
ISBN: 0-87417-538-0

A LIFE OF TRAVELS

by Catharine Savage Brosman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Densely written, polemical, intermittently astute.

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More essays from Brosman (The Shimmering Maya, 1994), who ranges from travel to literature, solitude to society.

Although most of the pieces previously appeared in journals like American Scholar and Sewanee Review, the collection has been gathered to commemorate the author’s retirement after four decades teaching French language and literature at Tulane. This metaphoric watershed gently guides Brosman’s reflections, which include contemplative entries on her Western roots, her fidelity to her adopted city of New Orleans, European travels, and more jaundiced takes on the contemporary scene. “A House Apart” returns to her grandparents’ home in Denver, where Brosman spent idyllic years being taught self-reliance: “As a child I cared almost nothing for what anyone thought except the family.” She hits the road in essays like “The Immeasurable Sky,” mining the isolated communities and austere beauty of rural Texas and Louisiana for well-realized experiences. When she attends a horse-cutting competition, she comments approvingly, “These families are not dysfunctional, the adolescents not in the streets.” Contrastingly, she relishes the opportunity to drub Aspen’s youthful gliterati for shallowness and hypocrisy upon attending that community’s “Sneaker Ball,” so named because the posh folks sport outlandish sneakers with formal wear. Brosman’s lifelong dedication to French poetry and philosophy informs her essays to positive effect, with references ranging from Rousseau and Voltaire to Sartre and Valéry, and her command of naturalistic detail is strong. Less praiseworthy are the stridently rightist asides reminiscent of Gertrude Himmelfarb, ranging from an expressed distaste for affirmative action in an essay with generally perceptive thoughts on urban race relations (“Getting Along”) to familiar caricatures of “black-shirted, black-trousered, black-cravated French expatriate intellectuals.” These remind us that conservatives and resentful academics also have a vested interest in maintaining the “culture war” they supposedly decry. Perhaps Brosman will find a second career as an aspirational author for the Ann Coulter contingent.

Densely written, polemical, intermittently astute.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-87417-538-0

Page Count: 216

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003

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.