These dated Village Voice columns might never have resurrected themselves if the perpetually adolescent Johnston (Jasper Johns: Privileged Information, 1996) were not a lesbian separatist, and if it weren't perennially hip to be contrarian. Johnston is, as she says with such overbearing glee, ``hopelessly narcissistic.'' She never tires of recounting with nauseating bravado her cheap sexual exploits, of ``anal orgasm'' and ``masturbation fantasies [that] are virtuosic.'' Of course, being a self-styled revolutionary, she considers monogamy an ``archaic form of bondage'' and the mother-daughter bond one of ``elephantal cuntsequence.'' As a ``lesbian chauvinist,'' naturally, she asserts that ``all women are lesbians except those who don't know it yet,'' and in the caustic style so typical of this book she barks that ``women don't like to be fucked by men any more and in fact never did.'' She thinks it fiendishly Joycean to parody Catholic liturgy as follows: ``Maria, full of grease, the load is with me!'' Next to real writers like Andrea Dworkin, whose bold verbiage did indeed change the way we thought, Johnston is a callow hack. Since many of these pieces were already reprinted in her previous books Lesbian Nation and Gullibles Travels, one wonders why they needed yet another airing. Thankfully, Johnston has given up her Gertrude Stein act of late and gone on to finer things than the joys of groupie fame—that is, biography and criticism, those quaint arts of writing about other people.
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-85242-450-8
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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