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THE STRANGE DEATH OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE

Name: THE STRANGE DEATH OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE
Author: David Pryce-Jones
ISBN: 0-8050-4154-0

by David Pryce-Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 1995

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Pryce-Jones (The Closed Circle, 1989, etc.), who was for many years a correspondent in the Soviet Union for the Daily Telegraph, has written a strange and intriguing book on what is perhaps the central event of our time. Traveling extensively throughout the country, meeting people high and low, Pryce-Jones leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the only thing unusual about the death of the Soviet empire was that it caught the West by surprise. Within the Communist Party hierarchy and down to the man and woman in the street, it seems that everyone had an inkling of the impending catastrophe. From party leaders to sclerotic bureaucrats, national minorities, workers, and intellectuals, the voices of those interviewed by Pryce-Jones combine in a chorus of corruption, paralysis, hopelessness, and despair. The central figure in this drama is, of course, Gorbachev. In the introduction, the author implies that the last Soviet leader was ``a tragic hero,'' but by the conclusion he is able to write that he may be seen either as a historic personality of lasting stature or a simpleton. Some of these points have been made before: that the despotism of the czars was the historical antecedent of the Leninist-Stalinist regime; the dismal litany of crimes, betrayals, greed, and vanity. Pryce-Jones is on shakier ground when he asserts that Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and rival party leaders Yakovlev, Ligachev, and Lukyanov were all cut from the same cloth, or when he implicates Khrushchev in the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjîld. Most questionable is the assertion that intellectuals such as Brecht, Pablo Neruda, Sartre, and Graham Greene supported the Soviet Union as a matter of ``self- esteem'' and that Foucault, Lukacs, Marcuse, and others ``had a brutal manic streak in their characters which found its correspondence with similar sadists.'' A wealth of detail from the warp and woof of Soviet society, but flawed by a lack of critical insight. (map) (Author tour)

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1995

ISBN: 0-8050-4154-0

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995

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.