Like an enthralled biologist, the author observes the evolution of Nice as a social ecosystem. His portrait is as...
Kanigel (The One Best Way, 1997, etc.) knits together, from dozens of intriguing sources, an urbane history of Nice.
Nice has been around since the Greeks made camp there in the 6th century b.c., and it has felt the tread of Roman Legionnaires as well as Fodor-toting travelers. Queen Victoria liked it and so did Lenin; European Jews sought refuge there during WWII, and so did GIs once the conflict ended. But while Kanigel notes the extremes at play, he is more interested in the city’s transformation, particularly from exclusive to popular. So he tracks the perceptions of the city as seen by travelers and recorded in diaries, letters, postcards, and a host of other accounts, starting back in the 16th century, working up through the influence Smollett’s travels had on bringing Nice to the attention of his countrymen and especially the generation of English “hivernants,” who wintered in the city. Indeed, it is English travelers who make up the majority of Kanigel’s sources in the years before the railroad—an upper-crust bunch who enjoyed the simplicity of the town while it was still a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia—as opposed to the more international (and more lowly “tourist”) crowd that flocked to the port when the difficulty of getting there—once a question of “sheer precipices, the sea washing up on the rocks below, pirates and storms and moonlit mountain passes”—was overcome. Kanigel follows the rise of Nice during the Belle Époque, its sad slide during the 1930s, its attractiveness to the hoi polloi, and its associations with Bardot, Chaplin, and Picasso.
Like an enthralled biologist, the author observes the evolution of Nice as a social ecosystem. His portrait is as spellbinding as its subject. (Photographs)Pub Date: June 3, 2002
ISBN: 0-670-89988-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
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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