Not a classic—Mowat's talent hadn't yet matured, and Angus wasn't of Farley's stature as a writer—but a bracing reminder of...
A one-of-a-kind book, and with a misleading authorship—for this is actually a collection of correspondence between Mowat, one of Canada's most popular and cantakerous writers, and his novelist-librarian father during the harrowing World War II years of 1942-45.
As these letters begin, Mowat is in Italy, slogging through the trenches, nearly burnt out from "coming of age in a world gone mad.'' His letters home crackle with nervous energy and undisciplined intelligence. He writes of war's horrors ("something hellish has happened but all I can say for the moment is that the regiment has been to hell, and only part of it got back''); composes nature ditties ("The shy and self-effacing Mole/is happiest when in a hole''); and recounts his loves and ambitions, last night's shelling, life in the trenches, his lust for books and typewriter ribbon. Angus Mowat writes back with salvos of love, encouragement, and humor. This, one feels, is a father-son relationship as it ought to be. Angus talks of his own military work; prods Farley to produce ("My son, don't let your writing go, no matter what happens''); and dreams of a writing duet ("if it could only come down to two of us pecking at two typewriters in two cabins at two ends of some little island''). Two lives unfold: Angus publishes a novel that he sends to Farley, who doesn't like it but won't say so; Farley, at war's end, gets embroiled in a comic attempt to retrieve German armaments for a Canadian museum. Mom sends a few missives, touching in their tenderness. But what's important here aren't events but a relationship—the preserved voices, one cranky-old, the other cranky-young, of two men bound together by blood and words.
Not a classic—Mowat's talent hadn't yet matured, and Angus wasn't of Farley's stature as a writer—but a bracing reminder of what really matters.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-65029-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
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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