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VITAL SIGNS

Name: VITAL SIGNS
Author: Ian Penman
ISBN: 1-85242-523-7

WRITINGS ON MUSIC, FILM AND CULTURE

by Ian Penman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1998

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A collection of essays—his first—by one of England’s hot cultural critics. Since Penman is a veteran of the UK’s cutting-edge music publication New Musical Express, much of his work consists of music criticism. However, he’s also able to take a shrewd look at such movements as punk and hip-hop from a more broad-minded cultural aerie. His perspective is often poststructuralist. Penman makes myriad references to Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and their fellow philosophers, yet, unlike many postmodern critics, he sacrifices little by way of clarity. His treatment, moreover, ventures beyond music into television and film, as when he chats up comedian Steve Martin about Wittgenstein (!). —It’s a matter of record: Wittgenstein changed his life. Most comics start with a pratfall and end up feeling pulled towards Pinter. With a logic proper to our times, Steve Martin is a man who rejected empiricism and found respect and reward behind a fine selection of false noses and novelty accessories.— Penman is particularly persuasive when administering bad reviews—for instance, of Norman Mailer (“he just couldn’t face facts that he was a damned fine journalist, and not William Blake on Seventh Avenue”). As any postmodernist should, he plays with his own words. On Jackson Pollock: “Derision and hagiography are often two sides of the same coin (rearrange those letters to form ‘icon’).” The author’s forays outside the artistic realm (to Indian food as cultural phenomenon; to condom use in the age of AIDS) are compelling, and he’s no British chauvinist. In fact, he discusses his countrymen’s insatiable appetite for telly sensationalism with a delightful campiness. Except for a distasteful postmortem attack here on Frank Zappa, Penman lives up to his surname—and to the achievements of like-minded critics such as Greil Marcus and Robert Palmer.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1998

ISBN: 1-85242-523-7

Page Count: 374

Publisher: Serpent’s Tail

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1998

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.