An exhausting journey through one man’s ego as all the drugs and girls in Asia gradually wear him out.
The deputy editor of Time Asia takes an erratic tour from Tokyo to Kathmandu, following beautiful Westerners as they snort, smoke, and screw their way around various underworlds.
Although Greenfeld (Speed Tribes, 1994) tells tales of Russian pimps, Chinese princesses, and Thai prostitutes along the way, he firmly remains the protagonist in all but one of a series of narratives loosely stitched together to follow his years spent in Asia. Starting out as an English teacher in his mother’s native Japan, Greenfeld quickly ditches that uncool profession (mid-semester) in favor of the more glamorous world of journalism. His initial enthusiasm for the traveler scene is expressed with much repetition of the F-word and a bizarre adoption of British slang (“lad,” “posh,” “fellow”). Perhaps, through self-deprecation—he describes his jealousy of others who are more successful, beautiful, and hip—he is trying to convey cynicism. It doesn’t work and is more irritating than effective. Greenfeld bolsters his claim to know fashion with an endless litany of characters described by the labels on their jeans and sunglasses. Girls are either hags with TOEFL tapes, or sexual conquests, in which case we are taken through their precise proportions and proficiency at oral sex. Occasionally, a bit of journalism finds its way in and we learn about riots in Jakarta or fads in the Thai sex trade. Only in the last few stories, the best of which is “The Circuit,” do we see our callow hero disillusioned. This doesn’t necessarily make the earlier chapters easier to read, but it’s gratifying to find him irritated with carbon copies of his younger self and a relief to see him finally, as promised, “coming down.”
An exhausting journey through one man’s ego as all the drugs and girls in Asia gradually wear him out.Pub Date: July 9, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-50276-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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