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FOXGLOVES AND HEDGEHOG DAYS

Name: FOXGLOVES AND HEDGEHOG DAYS
Author: Daniel J. Blajan
ISBN: 0-395-85729-5

SECRETS IN A COUNTRY GARDEN

by Daniel J. Blajan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 1997

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A pleasantly campy, my-life-in-Elysium gardener's memoir. Blajan, born in Monte Carlo, but now of uncertain age, moved six years ago to ``a small cottage in an extremely rural area near the Belgian border.'' Our narrator is nothing if not coy. He never does tell us, for example, which nation he lives in with so many ladybugs, weeds, wasps, flowers, and slugs. Blajan builds an enchanting personal myth from his universal backyard in Eden. Like an Adam who can't stop snickering, he discovers nature with a light-handed, unconventional Çlan: Before his very eyes, a fanciful stinkhorn fungus, ``vaguely obscene,'' swells up pink and orange from the depths of a hedge. He learns that ``pine cones do have voices''—which are exercised when heat causes the cones to expand and explode. As a self-described ``horticultural nitwit'' who spends half of every year as an officer on a cruise ship, Blajan comes home to diddle with the bliss of daffodils: ``Some looked like roses and some looked like weird spidery insects. Some looked like they ought to be psychoanalyzed.'' Yet these brief, sociable, lyric essays do not just joke around. By the time Blajan has told the tale of a centuries-old linden tree, culminating in the tree's bizarre funeral service, it is difficult not to be moved. Likewise, his verbal snapshot of an elderly, blind gardener and her acute sense of smell, sound, and touch is unforgettable. ``Silence does not exist. Silence is a patchwork of little sounds,'' he decides because of her. Though Blajan's giddiness can get the better of him, he knows how to charm: ``We should festoon the entire world with garlands that will reach from one continent to another and bring the people together. An impractical and whimsical suggestion, maybe, of which I'm nevertheless very much in favor.'' Peter Pan succumbs gleefully to a toadstool.

Pub Date: April 16, 1997

ISBN: 0-395-85729-5

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997

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.