The lineaments of I.M. Pei's career emerge clearly in this skillfully composed biography, although the celebrated architect's private personality remains veiled. The East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Boston's John Hancock Building and Kennedy Library; the Bank of China Building in Hong Kongthese are only some of the successful projects that have made I.M. Pei's peerless reputation. Journalist Cannell shrewdly opens with an account of Pei's crowning glory, his renovation of the Louvre. Making his striking addition of a pyramid-shaped entrance to the Parisian palace a reality, Pei showcased the traits which have propelled his career: a visionary sense of urban space, technical brilliance at design, and incomparable salesmanship. After this introduction, Cannell goes back, describing Pei's prominent southern Chinese family and his education at MIT and Harvard. Narrating how Pei established his reputation, Cannell shows superb journalistic abilitiesskills that he displays further in leading his reader through the ups and downs of the complex projects listed above. Cannell is not primarily a critic. Rather than develop an original perspective on Pei's achievement, he offers a range of assessments, at times relying a little too heavily on middlebrow cultural commentators such as Paul Goldberger. What Cannell does do, and it is an important task, is analyze Pei as a power player, showing how well he has dealt with elite, moneyed patrons such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Paul Mellon. Unfortunately, lack of access to, or perhaps insights from, Pei's closest circle leaves Cannell grasping at straws to explain the architect's inner life. Little is revealed about Pei from such obtuse observations as that he ``came from a civilization that built impossibly grand expressions of power.'' All the same, Pei's public success makes for a great story, one that Cannell adroitly reports. (90 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-517-79972-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
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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