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LOOKING BACK

Name: LOOKING BACK
Author: Lou Andreas-Salome
ISBN: 1-55778-260-1

MEMOIRS

by Lou Andreas-Salome ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 1991

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First published in Germany in 1951, these memoirs and meditations on love, religion, and art by Russian-born writer and psychoanalyst Andreas-SalomÇ (1861-1937) offer a curious perspective on the lives, works, and times of Nietzsche, Paul RÇe, Rilke, Rodin, Freud, Tolstoy, Wagner, and the other friends, lovers, and European intellectual elite with whom she spent most of her life. Starting with a meditation on God and the loss of wholeness that comes with maturity, these ``uncontrollable memories,'' range over Andreas-SalomÇ's travels in Italy, Germany, France, Russia, her life in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, the human encounters and varieties of love that overcame her sense of isolation, and her studies with Freud, and conclude with a description of her 45-year unconsummated marriage to Carl Andreas, professor Persian, illustrating, she says, that ``what is truly essential remains unsaid.'' Reticent by nature, oblique in style, combining both the mystical and the analytic, Andreas-SalomÇ nonetheless conveys the elusive charm, warmth, spirit that inspired in others so much love and poetry''flight,'' as one admirer calls itand perhaps misery as well, certainly for those lovers that included Nietzsche and Rilke, who raised suffering as well as life to an art. She wrote books about both of them, as well as Freud, whom she admired for the way his rational approach led to the discovery of the irrational. In spite of an elaborate scholarly apparatus (two afterwords, extensive notes, a bibliography, and an appendix of poems), there is so little biographical information about Andreas-SalomÇ that it's hard to follow her lifealthough minor characters are identified in detail. Even so, these memoirs have the considerable fascination of the overheard conversation of strangers. (Sixteen pages of photographsnot seen.)

Pub Date: May 24, 1991

ISBN: 1-55778-260-1

Page Count: 256

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991

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.