by Fabio Della Seta ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1991
A quiet, leisurely, and moving account of Jewish life in Rome during WW II. In 1938, the Italian government instituted a number of exclusionary racial laws. The Jews of Rome, who had by then been thoroughly integrated within nearly every sphere of public life, were suddenly forced into isolation and threatened with the prospect of exile or death. At the Villa Celimontana, the segregated school where Della Seta spent the war years, most of the students found themselves enclosed within a wholly Jewish setting for the first time in their lives and had to find new ways of understanding themselves and their nation. Many of them began to consult rabbis and attend temple services; others took up Zionism. Some fought the fascists as partisans; at least one joined the Fascist party ``to reform it from within.'' This is a memoir rather than a history, and the author writes with that lack of focus and richness of incident that most young lives contain: the intellectual pretensions and ambitions of his classmates, the anxieties brought by news of invasion or deportations, the simple traumas of adolescence, the strange beauty of Rome—all are portrayed with the same deliberation and seriousness. The final chapter, a rather sketchy account of Della Seta's 1960 meeting with Martin Buber in Jerusalem, attempts to add a bit of perspective by showing what the author became (an accomplished journalist) and how the Jewish sense that he gained of himself during the war grew in the quiet years that followed. Rambling and a bit diffuse, but very strong all the same. Della Seta's formal and rather distant narration (he writes in the third person) gives a novelistic quality to the story, profound in its pathos and depth.
Pub Date: June 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-910395-63-2
Page Count: 175
Publisher: Northwestern Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
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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