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BLACK VIRGIN MOUNTAIN

Name: BLACK VIRGIN MOUNTAIN
Author: Larry Heinemann
ISBN: 0-385-51221-X

A RETURN TO VIETNAM

by Larry Heinemann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2005

An angry yet ultimately moving journal of the quest for closure many Vietnam vets may never find.

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Writing of his return to Vietnam almost three decades after he went to war and came home “pissed off and ground down by a bottomless grief I could not right then begin to express,” novelist Heinemann still vents rage and melancholia.

He’s not some old soldier trying to recapture the good old days, insists the National Book Award winner (Paco’s Story, 1986, etc.). Images of torn, shattered, and crisp-burnt corpses resurface along with the constant prod of the eternal question: for what? For roughly the first half, Heinemann can muster only tortured placeholders for an answer: generally, variations on the theme of war as the ultimate obscenity. (A close reading of his text should, incidentally, dissuade anyone who professed to believe that John Kerry single-handedly cobbled up stories of American atrocities in Vietnam.) Heinemann’s memories are vivid, almost brutally etched, particularly with respect to ordinary soldiers’ behavior as the wrong-headedness of the whole deal starts to sink in. Troops discovered, for example, that they had commonly arrived at the conclusion that the best way to expose anyone who gave a stupid order, from President Johnson or General Westmoreland on down to the “lifers” (career officers) on the front lines, was to follow it to the letter. Heinemann’s trip back in 1990 with a company of writers immediately began to prompt purgative effects—along with the horrific memories. He began a kind of “brothers in arms” reconstruction of what the Viet Cong were all about, how they moved in the night and through the dreaded Cu Chi tunnels. On a subsequent trip he was impelled to ascend Black Virgin Mountain (Nui Ba Den), which gave him a view of nearly the entire area in which his war year was spent. On the summit, he realized that he felt oddly but undeniably at home.

An angry yet ultimately moving journal of the quest for closure many Vietnam vets may never find.

Pub Date: April 19, 2005

ISBN: 0-385-51221-X

Page Count: 196

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005

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.