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OUT HERE IN THE OUT THERE

Name: OUT HERE IN THE OUT THERE
Author: Philip Heldrich
ISBN: 0-922811-61-X

ESSAYS IN A REGION OF SUPERLATIVES

by Philip Heldrich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2005

A mixed bag, then: some good moments, but mostly unsatisfying.

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Lackluster travels in the nation’s lower quarter.

In his best moments, Heldrich (Arts and Sciences/Univ. of Washington, Tacoma) serves up affecting essays about little-visited places out on the prairie and desert where he communes with the spirit of Willa Cather, ponders the meaning of rodeos and gun shows, and drinks a lot of beer. He blends nicely observed vignettes (a cracker-barrel philosopher too drunk to pronounce “epistemology,” the precise makeup of the garbage below a Kansas overpass) with pleasing allusions (his book may contain the only application of a John Ashbery poem to a dusty New Mexico back road), and he gets in some affectionate fun-poking at cultural commonplaces Out West: cowboy boots, cheap motels, college football. Yet Out Here suffers from a certain heavy-handedness: Heldrich is too fond of insisting that, unlike him, the rest of America is blind to the virtues of the outback (“They seem to have an implicit fear of the land, an anxiety of separation, of being too far from the mall”), and he’s too quickly given to cloying exaltations (“Whenever I bite into a tortilla, I can’t help but think I’m connecting with the age of the great Maya and Aztec cultures before the continuing Conquest”). Heldrich also seems unaware that the wandering-the-byways-to-deliver-social-criticism (and, yes, exaltations) trope has been done before, and much better, by the likes of Ian Frazier, Edward Abbey, and William Least Heat-Moon. (His idea that the Okies went to California to be fashionable suggests that he should brush up on John Steinbeck’s work, too.) When he turns to the inevitable, things get even worse; an essay on Las Vegas, always an easy target, is a below-average evocation of a place that has earned a whole library of bad writing, and a piece on Disneyland, an easier target still, is staggeringly trite.

A mixed bag, then: some good moments, but mostly unsatisfying.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-922811-61-X

Page Count: 202

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2004

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.