For fans of economical language and thoughtful journalism, a pleasure.
Journalist and essayist Morrow (Evil, 2003) gathers the work of four decades, most from the pages of Time.
Morrow has a capacious mind and a light hand, good qualities for a generalist writing about pretty much whatever he wants in a mass-market publication. Some of the seven-dozen-plus pieces here seem a little pedestrian, to be sure, including the opener, a so-what meditation on sailing and the evanescence of human life; others go nowhere fast, as with a couple of rural cat-on-the-porch, corn-in-the-field reveries that no one does as well as Verlyn Klinkenborg. Still, all are readable, and many are memorable. There’s a slyly subversive piece on the opening of the Nixon Library, for instance, with its mega-sized statues of the likes of Mao and de Gaulle: “Nixon,” Morrow writes, “has always had a habit of dressing the set with giants, setting the delay timer, and then jumping into the picture himself.” Exactly. Morrow is no easier on any of the other politicians who come into his crosshairs: “That has been one trouble with Reaganistic good feeling: a suspicion that it was based on camera angle.” “At his worst moments on the stump, Bush is a sort of amateur terrorist of language, like an eleven-year-old Shi’ite picking up a Kalashnikov assault rifle for the first time and firing off words in wild bursts.” “Nero gave the people circuses. Clinton is the circus.” Against a vaguely dissatisfied take on politics and modern life, though, Morrow offers a humane and even hopeful vision: Remarking on the red state/blue state divide, for instance, he notes that “Americans have always been each other’s evil twins,” which ought to inspire a tiny bit more tolerance, and he closes by observing that forgiveness may be one of the best tools we have for surviving our time, though it “is not an impulse that is in much favor.”
For fans of economical language and thoughtful journalism, a pleasure.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2006
ISBN: 0-465-04750-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2005
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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