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BLOOMSBURY WOMEN

Name: BLOOMSBURY WOMEN
Author: Jan Marsh
ISBN: 0-8050-4550-3

DISTINCT FIGURES IN LIFE AND ART

by Jan Marsh ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1996

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the bookstores—here's another volume about Bloomsbury. For whatever reasons, we are currently in the midst of a full- blown public enthrallment with the pansexual congerie of Brits who paraded under the name of Bloomsbury (see Quentin Bell's tribute, Bloomsbury Recalled, p. 34). Almost all of them dabbled in the arts, but with a few notable exceptions such as Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey, most reserved their real talents for the art of living. Brilliant parties, frequent travels, scandalous, polymorphous affairs and mÇnages—they lived the kind of lives that make for juicy reading. And though biographer Marsh (Christina Rossetti, 1995, etc.) is ever tactful, she does not usually disappoint, at least on this account. But like an artist's sketch, while the whole picture is there, the details are invariably missing or scanted. A full study of Bloomsbury's women, in the vein of Strachey's Eminent Victorians, would have filled a useful niche, but this book is more of an ungendered and generalist survey of the entire movement. Only in its profuse and lavish illustrations, paintings, and sketches by such Bloomsbury stalwarts as Vanessa Bell and Dora Carrington does Marsh remember her supposed subject. But we all know how deep beauty runs, and it is certainly no fair substitute for analysis and research. In the slim spaces between illustrations, Marsh makes few attempts to examine how the experiences of Bloomsbury women differed from those of the men and how this might have influenced their art and ideas. She does not even particularly bother with important, individual biographical details. Virginia Woolf's death, for example, takes a mere two paragraphs. And all the beautiful, insipid, and derivative works of art are left to languish, virtually unremarked. Breezy, blowsy, this is Bloomsbury for beginners.

Pub Date: March 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-8050-4550-3

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996

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.