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OVERSTORY: ZERO

Name: OVERSTORY: ZERO
Author: Robert Leo Heilman
ISBN: 1-57061-037-1

REAL LIFE IN THE TIMBER COUNTRY OF OREGON

by Robert Leo Heilman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 1995

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A small-town Oregonian glorifies rural life, hisses at higher education, and ponders his existence as writer and community activist in this collection of platitude-laden essays. Heilman, a National Public Radio commentator, is best when describing various low-paying, back-breaking forestry jobs and the conflicts between environmentalists and supporters of the timber industry. He rightly condemns extremists in both camps. His depiction of an economically depressed community is well balanced and sensitive, and he draws an interesting correlation between the decay of small-town community spirit and the demise of amateur baseball. Elsewhere, unfortunately, Heilman chooses to play anti- intellectual in celebration of the bucolic: ``My background has given me an understandable, perhaps unavoidable, belief that blue- collar workers are generally better people than white-collar workers and professionals.'' And in discussing college-educated bosses he writes, ``I found them to be oddly incompetent and overly self-conscious.'' His working-class-hero soliloquies are punctuated by frequent and banal musings on writing and boastful episodes in which he reveals that his SAT scores ranked in the top percentile, that he alone could find a rapport with a young retarded boy at a Head Start class, that he can dive from 40 feet, and that in issues of human understanding in general, his vision is far less clouded than that of a sociologist friend of his. Possessing an incurable fondness for metaphor and an irritating habit of personifying animalsgeese, buzzards, salmon, and squirrelswhenever they wander into his intellectual purview, Heilman affixes a maudlin poetry to all aspects of the natural world, refusing to rescue his book from his own egotistical clutches. Ultimately, Heilman's gushy, epiphanic observations of life from the backcountry effectively smother any early traces of cogency in this literary morass.

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1995

ISBN: 1-57061-037-1

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Sasquatch

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995

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.