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INTERPLAY

Name: INTERPLAY
Author: D.J. Enright
ISBN: 0-19-282493-7

A KIND OF COMMONPLACE BOOK

by D.J. Enright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 14, 1995

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Enright's engaging commonplace book takes multiple advantage of his work as a poet, traveling professor, book reviewer, and, not least, anthologist. Of an apparently polymathic author, Swift wrote, ``what though his head be empty, provided his commonplace book be full''—which Enright notes with characteristic irony in his own eclectic one. With his scholarly career spanning Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and Egypt, and a journalistic background to balance his poetic output, Enright makes a heterogeneous assembly seem intimate and personal. There are reflections on the themes and figures of his poetry, including Faust, Adam and Eve, and his working-class Warwickshire childhood, as well as a scattering of new poems. There are also miniature travelogues from his professorships that are both searching and diverting, whether on instruction in Thai, madness in Egypt, or the actually scrutable Japanese. Professionally, his experiences on both sides of publishing—the inner workings of editors and the makeshift criticisms of book reviewers—complement his extracts from George Gissing on Grub Street, Milton on freedom of the press, and Dr. Johnson and Coleridge on writing as a career. Likewise his time as a teacher of English literature informs both his criticisms of self-involved, self-destructive theorizing and his views of literature's uses amid modern media and in other cultures. Although his self-effacing irony holds its ground in these matters, his opinions closer to home are a little parochial, be it on the soap opera Coronation Street, Princess Di, the Times Literary Supplement, or Salman Rushdie. Enright recovers himself as he winds his book up on the subjects of age and mortality, notably on fictional children's deaths and Anthony Burgess's passing. If some personal observations court banality and the philosophy is not the deepest, Enright's well-arrayed selections form a pleasurable trove of musings and browsings.

Pub Date: Dec. 14, 1995

ISBN: 0-19-282493-7

Page Count: 237

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 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.