bookshelf

THE MOUNTAIN WORLD

Name: THE MOUNTAIN WORLD
Author: Gregory McNamee
ISBN: 0-87156-898-5

A LITERARY JOURNEY

edited by Gregory McNamee ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2000

Extensive and provocative: This collection will fire in readers the need to head for the hills in all weathers. (20 b&w...

bookshelf

Mountains have been everything to people at one time or another—wild and terrifying, comfort and sanctuary— but it is in their transcendence "from our normal modes of being" that McNamee (Blue Mountains Far Away, etc.) chose the material in this broad and powerful collection.

McNamee has divided these essays, poems, songs, myths, and tales up by continent. Each contribution addresses some experience with mountains. Certainly there is a wide sampling of dead white males here, but there is also a sizeable contingent of women writers (Freda du Faur, Mary Austin, Isabella Tree), and McNamee has scoured the available literature to insure that native peoples are represented with telling source material. Ancient Celtic chants to protect highland herds, southern Paiute songs ("The rocks are ringing. They are ringing in the mountains"), and Sikkimese hymns are a welcome counterbalance to the glibness of Mark Twain in the Himalayas: "You can see where the boundaries of three countries come together, some thirty miles away; Thibet is one of them, Nepaul another, and I think Herzegovina was the other." The quality of the contemporary writing is terrific, including Bob Shacochis's purgative ascent of Anatolia's Mount Ararat and the understated recounting of the eruption of an Icelandic volcano by the Lutheran minister of Sandfell, Jon Thorlaksson: "As I stood at the altar, I was sensible of a gentle concussion under my feet." Other pieces describe Henry David Thoreau having his transcendental circuits baked on Mt. Katahdin, Bulgarian folktales (on why all wise men come from Khorosan), and fabulous creation stories from the !Kung, Xan, and Ashanti.

Extensive and provocative: This collection will fire in readers the need to head for the hills in all weathers. (20 b&w line drawings, not seen)

Pub Date: June 6, 2000

ISBN: 0-87156-898-5

Page Count: 320

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
TORTILLAS, TISWIN, AND T-BONES
by Gregory McNamee

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ONLY ONE LIVING TO TELL
by Mike Burns & edited by Gregory McNamee

- BOOK REVIEW
MOVEABLE FEASTS
by Gregory McNamee

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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.