In this display case, auriferous observations about literature lie alongside some substantial chunks of fool’s gold.
A disjunctive memoir cum meditation on Gotham.
Tytell (English/Queens College; Paradise Outlaws, 1999, etc.) focuses on writers who lived in New York, from Henry James to the Beats, but intercuts scenes from his own life, not always to the desired effect. The early pages are appealing. The author describes boyhood eye problems that made reading difficult (cortisone eventually cured what numerous surgeries did not) and relates how his imagination was fired by Herman Melville’s fiction, especially “Billy Budd” and Typee. Relying heavily on Herschel Parker’s monumental biography, Tytell chronicles Melville’s decline from a popular writer of travel books to an unknown customs inspector who cranked out thousands of obscure lines in his massive pilgrimage poem, Clarel (Tytell’s vagueness about this work suggests he has not read it). The author is a bit dismissive of such Melville peers as Nathaniel Hawthorne (“cold and analytical”) and Washington Irving (a “local colorist”). Among the other literary figures whose lives and writings he examines closely are Edgar Poe, Walt Whitman, Henrys Miller and James. (Oddly, Tytell declares factual the highly debatable story that Poe died in Baltimore after selling his vote in assorted precincts.) Into all of this he weaves family history—his grandfather, a diamond trader, expected the author to be the same—as well as memories of his childhood, adolescence, education, love affairs, first apartments and part-time jobs. Tytell obviously loves literature and his city, but he’s also exceedingly fond of himself. He makes sure to let us know that he is often the brightest light in the room, cataloguing high-school grades and undergraduate honors, and he tells us more than we want to know about his sexual performance with beautiful women. Equally unwelcome is the nasty intelligence that while working in a restaurant Tytell once urinated in the drink of an offensive customer.
In this display case, auriferous observations about literature lie alongside some substantial chunks of fool’s gold.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-41416-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
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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