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RUSSIA

Name: RUSSIA
Author: Jo Durden-Smith
ISBN: 0-394-58257-8

A LONG-SHOT ROMANCE

by Jo Durden-Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 1994

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From British journalist and filmmaker Jo Durden-Smith (Who Killed George Jackson?, 1976), a warm and perceptive memoir of his love affair with Russia and with the woman he married, which began with a casual visit in 1988 to a country he considered ``a black hole on the edge of Europe.'' Russia under Gorbachev was changing, acquiring the trappings of a civil society, and Durden-Smith, who admits that he came ``along for the ride'' with two friends, soon found himself in love. In love with Russia, ``its dreams and passions, its struggles with history, its monumental search for a memory, its intensity of feeling.'' On this first visit, he met ``the Russian Bob Dylan,'' Boris Grebenshchikov. Interested in making a movie of this underground rock star, he flew to Leningrad, to meet this ``chameleonic and sort of medieval Russian Clark Kent,'' who lived on the top floor of an abandoned building. How the liberalization changed Boris, who became rich and famous after the movie was made, and how he now lives in the US, where he judges television music competitions, is symbolic of what happened to Russian society as it emerged from the protective constraints of communism. Unprepared for capitalism and let down by the West, Russia, laments Durden- Smith, is now run by the Mafia and the ``new swash-buckling nomenklatura.'' As well as offering closely observed portraits of the Russians he came to know, he tells the story of his other romance: his falling in love with, and eventual marriage to, Yelena, a media executive, mother of a teenaged daughter, and herself the daughter of an old Stalinist. Confessing to be ``hooked,'' he currently lives in Russia, a place that unlike the West, he says, ``is still alive with future possibility.'' A moving love letter to a country, a people, and a woman, as well as a remarkable record of Russian private life in the midst of yet another revolution.

Pub Date: April 24, 1994

ISBN: 0-394-58257-8

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1994

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.