Powerful, poetic, troubling.
Expatriate southwesterner Gonzalez (Literature/Univ. of Minnesota) returns to his stomping grounds to expatiate with passion and wisdom on rattlers, nuclear weapons, poverty, Chicano culture, cave drawings, the Alamo, and scorpions.
Each of these 15 eclectic essays (some previously published) deals in some fashion with the author’s beloved native turf, especially the far-west tip of Texas and New Mexico close to his boyhood home of El Paso. Better known as a poet (Turtle Pictures, 2000, etc.), Gonzalez begins with a stunning description of a drive into New Mexico in a pounding rainstorm (high wind, hail, the works) and ends with a meditation on scorpions occasioned by his mother’s battle to keep the critters out of her home (duct tape triumphs!). In between, he explores a variety of topics in a variety of formats, though his principal vehicle is the adroitly employed present tense and his principal concerns are grinding poverty, the use of the desert for dumping toxic and nuclear waste, the effects of NAFTA, and the “history” of the area viewed through the lenses of the conquerors. In several pieces, Gonzalez tells of visits to regional museums, recording with devastating clarity the misrepresentations and misapprehensions of those who fashioned the displays. He enjoys the role of the anonymous observer, nowhere more noticeably than in a long essay about a van tour to the site of a 1916 raid by Pancho Villa. Columbus, New Mexico, is a miserably impoverished town, but it has a Villa museum whose displays, asserts Gonzalez, reveal deep biases and even deeper ignorance. At various times, the author finds himself afraid of his own turf: afraid of desert trails; of chained dogs in Chamberino, New Mexico; of surly teens and edgy illegals. And at times he cannot resist telling us what his details have already shown us, but more often he points our heads and makes us notice.
Powerful, poetic, troubling.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2002
ISBN: 0-8165-2032-1
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Univ. of Arizona
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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