Tigers are not just an endangered species in India and Thailand and Nepal, writes field naturalist and safari guide Ives. Their goose (so to speak) is pretty much cooked. Tigers are awesome beasts, and for a naturalist such as Ives they are near mythic creatures—ancient, solitary, living on the margins. Ives knew that they once roamed the subcontinent in great numbers. But what was their current lot? Did their protected areas really give them a chance at survival, or were they doomed by circumstance? Ives takes up with three very different souls—a legendary champion of the tiger; a violent, inspiring, globe- trotting naturalist; and a tiger dilettante (like Einstein was a dilettante of physics), all of whom offer Ives little more than a tale of woe for the tiger's chances: Its habitat is too far gone. An American born safari leader, Ives knows the tiger's terrain, and the Western imagination, well enough to convey a landscape rife with dark magic—of Rajput castle, ghost forests, and panoramas of romance and antiquity. He wears his naturalist's training lightly, offering throwaway comments like this one, along a riverbank: ``There are two distinctly different . . . deer hoofmarks, the smaller belonging to chital, the larger either to sambar or to the very rare swamp deer.'' For all the story's subcurrent of despair, Ives has managed to infuse it with a bouncy, adventurous air, full of daring episodes, reckless happenings, even a love story, not to mention run-ins with the big guy himself. Still and all, a sense of doom hovers everywhere. This isn't so much a caution as it is an elegy—beautifully etched, picaresque even, but a sadder song for all that. One just has to trust and respect a guy who lets you know up front that you won't be seeing any tigers on his tiger safaris.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-47816-X
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
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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