Intriguing and thoughtful work from a doctor and thinker as comfortable quoting Longfellow as discussing Charcot’s cases at...
Pathologist-turned-author González-Crussi (On Being Born, 2004, etc.) produces another astute series of essays on human mortality and the function of art, this time concerning the sense of sight.
He begins his study with an exploration of “men’s foremost visual taboo,” tracing through history the complex male reaction to a glimpse of female genitalia: “allurement . . . commingled with the horrid fascination of death.” González-Crussi displays here a characteristic breadth of reading that spans recondite archives and modern-day newspaper reports. In “The Body as Will and Representation,” the author observes that the desire to see the body inside and out leads to such disparate phenomena as the medical art of dissection and 19th-century Parisians’ morbid delight in visiting the morgue, where cadavers were displayed to public view and onlookers could confront “the material embodiment of the Great Leveling that shall take place one day.” “Seeing Is Believing, and Believing Is Seeing” moves from “last sights” (the religious images 16th-century priests held before the gaze of prisoners about to be executed) to inquiries into what exactly passes before the eyes of those on the verge of death, speculating that they may be looking at “the supreme mystery that lies, beckoning us all, in the infinite distance.” “More Power to the Gaze” recounts ancient Mesopotamian and Greek theories about how the eyes derive their puissance—by sending out rays of inner “fire” toward an object, the Pythagoreans believed. In “Spectacular Vision: Three Ways of Looking at the Mirror,” González-Crussi offers examples of artists’ fascination with reflected personality and duplication, from medieval painters to such 19th-century writers as Poe and Dostoevsky. A final essay, “The Clinical Eye,” explores the extension of the medical gaze, from psychoanalysis to microscopy.
Intriguing and thoughtful work from a doctor and thinker as comfortable quoting Longfellow as discussing Charcot’s cases at Salpêtrière.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2006
ISBN: 1-58567-674-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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