Although in this unsatisfying biography she describes Alma Mahler as a ``goddess who made a god of each of her lovers,'' Giroud (ed. in chief, L'Express; I Give You My Word, 1974) also depicts the composer's wife as an arrogant, narcissistic woman who played whatever role she was cast in by creative, demanding men who in turn adored her for conforming to their expectations. Mahler was born into the artistic circles of Vienna in 1879. According to Giroud, Gustav, her first husband and 20 years her senior, enslaved her to his domestic needs, denigrated her taste for Nietzsche, Wagner, and Plato, and read Kant to her while she was in labor with the second of their two daughters, who died at age four. Sexually deprived, Alma began an affair with architect Walter Gropius; her husband consulted Freud. After Gustav's death and several other affairs, Mahler married Gropius, with whom, Giroud says, she ``had nothing in common'' except an exquisite daughter who died at age 17. The couple divorced. Although the work of Mahler's creative mates ``bored'' her, as Giroud puts it, Mahler liked the painting of Oskar Kokoschka, with whom she had an affair before, at age 50, marrying Franz Werfel, the author of The Song of Bernadette. There were other lovers, even at age 55, in what Werfel called his wife's ``last fling,'' with a 38-year-old priest. As Werfel's fame declined, Mahler resumed her role as the great composer's widow, or sometimes as the ``widow of the four arts.'' She died in 1964, at age 85. A grudging tribute without insight, compassion, or even evidence of the ``power'' that inspired the love that Mahler supposedly cultivated as an art. Mahler's determination, which allowed her to survive the loss of children and husbands, and her life in prewar Vienna certainly deserve at least as much attention as the amount of benedictine she drank.
Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-19-816156-5
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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