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RABIN

OUR LIFE, HIS LEGACY

A straightforward (and somewhat superficial) account of the life and times of Israel's late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by his widow. Rabin paints an adulatory, one-sided portrait of her husband, chronicling his life as a farmer, general, and statesman, and his many successes. His failures are almost always attributed to others. The author unfairly targets Bar-Ilan University, where Yigal Amir was a student, as the main force behind Amir's assassination of her husband. Although the university is a center of nonideological Orthodoxy, Rabin contends that ``a core of extremist rabbis'' there have led their students to believe that ``the `holy land' of Judea and Samaria is more holy than the life of the prime minister who was willing to compromise on this land for peace.'' She also blames the left for her husband's death, for remaining silent when right-wing protesters camped outside the Rabin home, taunting the couple and comparing them to Nicolae and Elena Ceauescu of Romania. And it was the left's complacency, contends Rabin, that gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his recent victory. ``Why had they not used me more extensively in their campaign?'' she wonders. She glosses over many of the controversies that surrounded the Rabins. She accused President Ezer Weizman of spreading rumors that her husband had a nervous breakdown in the exhausting days preceding the Six-Day War. The illegal bank account she held in America is explained as an ``oversight, an unintentional violation.'' And the lifelong rivalry between Rabin and Shimon Peres seems to dissipate in their joint pursuit of the Oslo agreement. The author clearly delights in her contacts with celebrities, and this book takes on a gossipy tone when she alludes to the likes of Henry Kissinger, Betty Ford, Barbara Bush, and Suah Arafat. Always interesting, but this is more of a eulogy than a memoir. (16 pages photos, not seen)

Pub Date: April 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-399-14217-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997

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NUTCRACKER

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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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

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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