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WHAT I CAN’T BEAR LOSING

Name: WHAT I CAN’T BEAR LOSING
Author: Gerald Stern
ISBN: 0-393-05818-2

NOTES FROM A LIFE

by Gerald Stern ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2003

Yet, with ultimate tenderness, comes the taunting suggestion that we might have been better off in that jittery world poised...

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National Book Award–winning poet Stern (Last Blue, 2000, etc.) brings the same renowned voice to prose, from a life that began in 1925 in what he recalls as the “Calvinist” Pittsburgh of his immigrant Russian parents.

“They were Sunday Jews,” he recalls, “nonobservant, indifferent to the mind, scoffers at culture. I was the first person to bring a book into the house.” And he read his way to the life of a poet—but hardly overnight. Using the memory he claims “my friends hated me for,” Stern plumbs the nonproductive decades of his youthful wanderings from Pittsburgh to Paris and through Europe to groves of academe for, no doubt, expiation. And while he always seems to remember whether he was reading Dickens or Milton when he was sleeping with a particular (often older) woman, he doesn’t always remember her name. His flowing style forms seemingly random narratives, but there’s also a cycle here: affirmation followed, inexorably, by self-deprecation and then the fears and doubts that lie in wait—for anyone—around the corner. Fortunately, the puckish Stern constantly spies on the impassioned Stern and informs on him. Considering, for example, a passage in Ezekiel, he notes: “It is a radical vision, and a little shocking, as well as being the kind of hyperbole that poets use to upset computer scientists and tree surgeons.” Holders of poetic license, of course, must always find the mystery in it. When there’s a lot of whiskey but no brute force, is it rape? Was the teenage Stern a feckless bystander or an accomplice? Were the nations of Europe in the postwar ’40s feckless bystanders or accomplices to the noble sufferings of sublime cellist Pablo Casals (a Stern hero) under Spain’s Franco?

Yet, with ultimate tenderness, comes the taunting suggestion that we might have been better off in that jittery world poised on the brink of a half-century’s Cold War.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-393-05818-2

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.