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THE WEST POLE

Name: THE WEST POLE
Author: Diane Glancy
ISBN: 0-8166-2894-7

by Diane Glancy ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1997

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Slight, self-satisfied essays on issues of Native American culture and identity. Glancy is an accomplished novelist (Pushing the Bear, 1996, etc.) and essayist (she won an American Book Award for Claiming Breath). But she is less successful here as memoirist and critic. This grab bag of essays, many written in loose verse, deals at length with her struggle to define herself as an Indian. ``I had no clear image of myself as a Native person,'' she writes. ``I was a part-Cherokee living on land that had belonged to another tribe.'' But her account of this process of self-discovery, of trying to reconstruct the lives and thoughts of her forebears, is diffuse and in the end not especially interesting; the subject of ``mixed blood'' identity is treated much better in Patricia Hilden's 1995 memoir, When Nickels Were Indians (not reviewed), and without Glancy's grating, New Agestyle platitudes (``I guess you can hear anything again. You can still scrape hides. If only through the imagination in your own head'' ). She thrives on circular arguments and questionable logic to assert her claims for Native identity, as when she defines a Native American as ``pretty much like any human being who had a high culture built on codes of honor and a behavior and way of life that were in harmony with their existence''—in short, pretty much like we all believe ourselves to be. She is still less convincing when discussing issues of literary theory. She equates, for no discernibly compelling reason, the adventurous spirit of Christopher Columbus with that of Thelma and Louise of movie fame, and she maintains as inarguable that Native American literature can only be viewed in Native American terms (which she never defines), an idea the literary scholar Arnold Krupat handily dispensed with in a recent study. ``What Native American literature and culture offer you is yourself,'' Glancy volunteers. There are countless better avenues to that discovery than the one Glancy follows.

Pub Date: March 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-8166-2894-7

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE COLLECTOR OF BODIES
by Diane Glancy

- BOOK REVIEW
STONE HEART
by Diane Glancy

- BOOK REVIEW
DESIGNS OF THE NIGHT SKY
by Diane Glancy

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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.