However lyrically written, Nekola's memoir of a St. Louis girlhood in the 50's offers a pitiless assessment of the hard- working, emotionally austere family that produced her. Nekola (Schweitzer Fellow/William Paterson College) was raised in an extended family of limited means, modest goals, and unfulfilled ambitions. Among its members were a resourceful grandmother who secretly drew dress designs; maiden aunts seemingly without personal histories; an educated mother who wore white gloves to the butcher shop and died before she could write the children's stories she planned on; a traveling and alcoholic father who left an incomplete, idealized autobiography written for a night-school class; a reclusive brother who dropped out of school and life; and a manic-depressive sister who walked away one day and died homeless and addicted at age 46. Nekola writes powerfully about the small things—clothes, food, family activities, the can opener with a lifetime guarantee that her father bought her, a bicycle excursion, her mother's recipe box, and the happiest minutes of her life, when, in 1960, her family gathered to watch an eclipse of the moon and became their ``original selves,'' ``five moon-gazing animals.'' But her tale is flawed by an objective narration that holds up her life like a jar of homemade jelly to be inspected for clarity and color, by her admitted failure to find in anyone an inner life, and by her attempt to turn her story into a feminist tract, even though there is no power to struggle over. In the world Nekola depicts—as opposed to the judgments she imposes on it—the struggle for men and women alike is one for simple survival, biological and emotional: an unheroic marathon in which adults perform the necessary tasks of domesticity.
Pub Date: Jan. 25, 1993
ISBN: 0-393-03433-X
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
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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