by David K. Leff ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2009
Pedantic and self-righteous.
Writer canoes in the wake of Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), sees much, expounds a lot, says a little.
Leff, a retired environmental official who has written about his Connecticut hometown (The Last Undiscovered Place, 2004), defines himself as a “deep traveler”: interested not primarily in getting from point A to B but in experiencing all that lies between. Military history, sociology, urban planning, the rise and fall of the mill economy, water pollution, the history of highways, the evolution of the canoe, the ugly ubiquity of big-box stores—these are what deep travelers consider as unobservant slobs gun their SUVs to the mall to get fat and buy superfluous stuff. Leff doesn’t reproduce Thoreau’s journey—impossible because of changes in the waterways and the closing of canals—but he does explore it, sometimes following his predecessor’s itinerary, sometimes going in the opposite direction. With him for various stages of a journey taken in several installments over several years were his young son, who complained of boredom until Nature won him over; a city-planner friend; and his future wife, with whom he exchanged snippy dialogue that seemingly escaped from one of Robert B. Parker’s less successful thrillers. Indeed, much of the conversation here is stilted and staged, with people speaking in earnest epigrams and structured paragraphs. Throughout, the author keeps company with some ghosts of travelers past, evoking and quoting not just Thoreau but also Ray Mungo and John McPhee, who published an essay on replicating the trip in 2003. Leff is not always complimentary, sneering with populist disdain at McPhee as a writer for an “urbane New Yorker audience.” Nor is he always entirely accurate; Leff calls Thoreau a “loner,” a characterization belied in Robert Sullivan’s recent, and much better, The Thoreau You Don’t Know (2009).
Pedantic and self-righteous.Pub Date: April 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58729-789-2
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Univ. of Iowa
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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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