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THE NEEDLE'S EYE

Name: THE NEEDLE'S EYE
Author: Fanny Howe
ISBN: 978-1-55597-756-6

PASSING THROUGH YOUTH

by Fanny Howe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2016

A slim volume that roams across continents, genres, and centuries to convey that which is so difficult to express.

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An allusive and elusive collection of meditations on being and becoming, rites of passage, boys and the men they become.

In her acknowledgements, Howe (Second Childhood, 2014, etc.), best known for her poetry, writes that these prose pieces and poems initially were published in a variety of places and that some were presented at conferences. The way they are organized, they seem to cohere as a whole, though readers’ challenge is to find similar meanings in the films the author loves and frequently references. “I have learned only recently that films are very similar to hallucinations, which are physiologically the same as experience,” she writes. In reference to a director whose influences are clear and a saint for whom she offers something of an alternative biography, Howe writes, “Rossellini’s ethic in filmmaking was Franciscan: to use little money, shoot spontaneously, and edit not much. Like the ‘first word, best word’ school of poetry, Rossellini mistrusted the process of refinement and treated his films as some might treat their notebooks, or first drafts.” There is very much a cinematic quality to the way these pieces connect and convey their meaning, and there’s also a sense that these might be notes toward something more immediately coherent. When the author writes of the “forever potential” of the child who resists yet can’t “stop its evolution into a grownup,” readers are invited to connect this with her provocative illumination of a poet’s soul of the surviving Tsarnaev brother and his reflections before the Boston Marathon bombing—and then to connect that with the life of a young rebel who would become a saint: “Francis was an idealistic teenager, an iconic candidate for today’s teenage gangs and jihads.”

A slim volume that roams across continents, genres, and centuries to convey that which is so difficult to express.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-55597-756-6

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Graywolf

Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
INDIVISIBLE
by Fanny Howe

- BOOK REVIEW
SELECTED POEMS
by Fanny Howe

- BOOK REVIEW
SAVING HISTORY
by Fanny Howe

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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.