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FOLLOWING THE BRUSH

Name: FOLLOWING THE BRUSH
Author: John Elder
ISBN: 0-8070-5906-4

AN AMERICAN ENCOUNTER WITH CLASSICAL JAPANESE CULTURE

by John Elder ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 4, 1993

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Appreciative essays on Japanese aesthetics and mores, delivered with sumi-like grace and delicacy. Elder (English/Middlebury; co-ed., The Norton Book of Nature Writing—not reviewed) makes good use of his sabbatical in Japan: He and his family settle into a traditional Kyoto neighborhood; he takes shodo (calligraphy) and Go lessons; his children attend a Japanese elementary school and learn kendo (swordsmanship) and nanga (watercoloring) after-hours. This blanket immersion in the culture affords Elder a ``richly marginal year'' in which he tastes Japanese life in a way closed to most visitors. For him, traditional Japan is a set of practices ``centered on doing and looking'': His painting teacher proceeds by example, without explanations; education is an unusual brew of rote memory and freedom to experiment, with children breaking into small groups at will to try out ideas planted by the teacher. Go class and contacts with Noh theater reveal to the author Japan's highly articulated gender roles, in which men speak in gruff monosyllables and women chirp and smile. This extreme cultivation marks Japan's approach to nature (``enfolding nature within history and culture''), which Elder explores through discussions of the Japanese spring, wilderness, and whale-hunting. His attempts to analyze Japanese psychology seem right on target, as in his observation that ``eating whales may actually typify the pleasure of rendering the vast and fearsome small,'' or that the ugliness of modern Japanese architecture stems from the nation's emphasis on interiority. Comparisons to America come frequently, without the believe-it-or- not tone of Edwin Reingold's Chrysanthemums and Thorns (p. 1241); instead, Elder substitutes a quiet admiration, and a hope that the American ideal of untamed wilderness and the Japanese ideal of humanized nature may somehow merge to the benefit of both. Balanced, gentle, meditative: an unusual find in today's books on Japan.

Pub Date: Jan. 4, 1993

ISBN: 0-8070-5906-4

Page Count: 172

Publisher: Beacon Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
READING THE MOUNTAINS OF HOME
by John Elder

- BOOK REVIEW
FAMILY OF EARTH AND SKY
edited by John Elder & Wong Hertha

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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.