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A GENTLE PLEA FOR CHAOS

Name: A GENTLE PLEA FOR CHAOS
Author: Mirabel Osler
ISBN: 1-55970-439-X

by Mirabel Osler ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1998

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Osler’s plea is not so gentle; rather, it’s opinionated (though never dismissive), bell-clear, wickedly humorous, brilliant—a call for cultivated anarchy in the garden that turns an oxymoron into a sensuous, sensible act. “Why garden? God knows . . . Damn those fine mornings. It’s then that guilt seeps in like bad gas,” groans Osler, one of England’s best-known gardeners. Don’t buy it for a minute. Her love of gardening is obvious, even if “a great number of gardening jobs are pure slog.” And her garden, eclectically wanton as it is, enemy of everything regimented and overly neat, shot through with the native vitality of plants for atmosphere and mystery, brings her to her knees much of the time; untidiness requires work. She wouldn’t have it any other way. She likes a rude edge, to blur and enchant, the unruly “quality that adds an extra sensory dimension.” She loves hedges, walls, and paths—“the bones of a garden”—as long as they don’t rob the garden of its sensuality. Here she offers not so much advice as the experience of her Shropshire garden: trees for their summer crowns and bare winter branches, stone for its texture and floral affinities, water for its attractiveness to humans and kingfishers and newts, bulbs for their individuality and scope. She’s not tethered to flowers, but she loves them too (“who can go outside and kick a lily?”). Like her garden, Osler will not be confined, and she delights in moving off in many directions, to weather wars and the transporting quality of scent, botanical illustrations and the patron saints of gardening (Osler suggests a small figure of one in the garden “might be just as efficacious as a blast of Phostrogen”). Osler’s thinking is original, intuitive, and sharp as a tack; as a gardening writer she rightly sits up there with Henry Mitchell and Eleanor Perenyi.

Pub Date: June 1, 1998

ISBN: 1-55970-439-X

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Arcade

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998

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.