A coming-of-age memoir by the widow of Andrei Sakharov— tedious in stretches and haphazardly organized, but ultimately fascinating for its intimate view into the turbulent history of Stalinist Russia. Bonner's mother and stepfather were highly placed Party members, and Bonner grew up in privileged circumstances in Leningrad and Moscow. The family was given furnished apartments and dachas, while Bonner and her younger brother were sent to the best schools and favored by teachers. But Bonner suffered from her mother's frequent absences on Party business—and from her coldness and outright verbal abusiveness on the rare occasions when she was around. Raised for all practical purposes by a stiffly correct grandmother and a succession of nannies, who provided most of the love she experienced, Bonner was a sickly loner during most of her early childhood. Adolescence brought some close friends and a first love, and for a while things were happy. But then Stalin's purges began, friends of the family mysteriously disappeared, and finally Bonner's own parents were arrested—her father executed, her mother sent to a camp for the wives of ``Traitors to the Nation,'' where she remained for eight years. During WW II, Bonner became a nurse and, later, a doctor. Brief flash-forwards to Bonner's later life as Sakharov's wife, their exile, and her final reconciliation with her mother frame and punctuate the narrative, the title of which seems chosen at random: Bonner's rambling memoir gives many other subjects equal weight. A more striking theme here is the staggering number of losses Bonner and her compatriots endured, both at Stalin's hands and in the war that claimed 20 million Russian lives. And the greatest loss of all, perhaps, was of her own childhood idealism about the Party. Not a literary success, but worthwhile for its historical value. (Sixteen pages of photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Feb. 13, 1992
ISBN: 0-394-58761-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1991
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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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