A TIME IN CHINA

Name: A TIME IN CHINA
Author: Rue L. Cromwell
ISBN: 978-1312640436

by Rue L. Cromwell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 2014

A thoughtful album of memories that sheds light on a world now lost to history, illustrating daily Chinese life with earnest...

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Like a time capsule, Cromwell’s debut memoir offers artifacts from a certain place and time: China in the early 1980s, as witnessed by a visiting American psychologist.

In the wake of the Cultural Revolution, the author traveled to China in 1981 to learn about the nation’s mental health services. Despite the tightly regulated tour, Cromwell interacted with a diverse range of people, from bureaucrats to professionals to service workers. This book is a diary of that whirlwind journey, incorporating journal entries, color photographs, and transcripts of conversations that Cromwell had with locals. He was surprised early on to discover that the Chinese people he encountered were unself-conscious and friendly. When he met a gun-toting soldier, he pantomimed taking a photograph, and the soldier casually posed for the camera. As the author notes in his introduction, his visit preceded the Tiananmen Square massacre, at a time when the relationship between the United States and China was particularly warm. Although Cromwell had no expertise regarding China and certainly didn’t speak the language, he seemed to embrace his role as a foreign guest and de facto ambassador. He describes being haunted by intense, symbolic dreams before his trip, and he arrived in China exhausted and apprehensive. When a translator failed to appear, he had no way to communicate with officials and felt that he was wasting time. However, this anxiety wears off over the course of his trip, and gradually, he seems not only to appreciate the age and complexity of Chinese culture but also to embrace it. This memoir unfolds very slowly, like any personal log, and Cromwell often writes in the clinical language of a caregiver. As a result, the prose is too dry and meticulous to be fully enjoyable as travel literature. Instead, the book best serves as a historical document that chronicles an important stage in the evolution of modern China, and it will likely appeal to readers who are already interested in that zeitgeist.

A thoughtful album of memories that sheds light on a world now lost to history, illustrating daily Chinese life with earnest words and snapshots.

Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2014

ISBN: 978-1312640436

Page Count: 252

Publisher: Lulu

Review Posted Online: April 24, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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

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THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

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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.