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METRO STOP DOSTOEVSKY

Name: METRO STOP DOSTOEVSKY
Author: Ingrid Bengis
ISBN: 0-86547-672-1

TRAVELS IN RUSSIAN TIME

by Ingrid Bengis ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2003

Forced literary allusions aside, a stirring encounter with people overrun by time and change.

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Russian-American Bengis (I Have Come Here to Be Alone, 1976, etc.) searches for spiritual roots in her parents’ native land, buffeted by tumultuous times after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Although the Cold War now seems like a receding chapter in somebody else’s history book, the casualties were real and not confined to the battlefields of Vietnam and Afghanistan. When the author went to live in Russia at the invitation of her friend “B,” she stepped into a state that, pressed to the wall by resolute capitalist antagonists, had diverted so many resources into “defense” that it became the first modern society to actually see the rate of infant mortality rise while life expectancy went down. Looking for “what socialism might have killed” in the country of her heritage, Bengis finds deep wounds and much suffering but an intact soul, true to the Russian proverb that “hope dies last.” It’s a soul personified in the turbulent B: reeling from the end of her marriage, plagued by money problems, and gripped with paranoid fear that some mobster will covet her apartment and send thugs to appropriate it, in spite of it all, she lives for art. Together B and Bengis encounter a cast of characters struggling to survive Yeltsin’s “catastroika.” (Among their late-night, kitchen-table insights is the notion that cheese from America tastes like a rubber ball.) The author’s eye for telling detail is sharp; her notions often fleeting, yet engaging—e.g., has the socialist doctrine that “everything belongs to the People” left behind it a nation of incorrigible petty thieves? The decision to have a malignancy removed in a Russian hospital puts Bengis in close contact with women facing similar surgeries; their shared, unconditional support and eventual joy at her recovery are inspirational, as the Russian spirit transcends both dreariness and angst.

Forced literary allusions aside, a stirring encounter with people overrun by time and change.

Pub Date: May 14, 2003

ISBN: 0-86547-672-1

Page Count: 320

Publisher: North Point/Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 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.