A collection of prose pieces focusing on the nature of Israeli society and its relations with Arabs within and without its borders. Israeli novelist and short-story writer Hareven (Twilight and Other Stories, 1992, etc.) writes disapprovingly of the values and ethics of modern Israel. She characterizes the predominant mood of the country as shallow and transient; consumerism predominates, and a selfish subjectivity runs rampant. Thousands of people are killed on the road by ``dilettante drivers.'' The ``dilettante rabbis'' of the ultranationalist Gush Emunim forget that the Torah rejects collective punishment and urges us to respect the rights of non- Jews. Hareven feels that her contemporaries have lost a reverence for the past, exemplified by the Tel Aviv municipality's demolishing its first school, the Gymnasium, to build yet another shopping mall: ``The shmatte business and its attendant fashions take precedence over a historical educational institution.'' Consumerism and superficiality, she feels, characterize the new Israeli. The root of all this, insists Hareven, is the nation's refusal to give up its historical victim status. Israeli Jews think that they are entitled to let loose, free of moral or historical bounds, and to commit atrocities like exiling Arabs from their homes and appropriating their lands. Turning from national pathology to policy, Hareven contends that Israel must evacuate the administered territories, since the alternative is ``permanent potential for war.'' While much of Hareven's writing offers insights and provocation, she tends to blithely dismiss, rather than debate, differing opinions. In her passion to focus on the humanistic concerns of Judaism, she pushes over ritual pillars such as dietary laws and Sabbath observance as not necessary to ``the framework of basic Judaism.'' A thoughtful, disturbing, though often simplistically one- sided view of a complex country and its heterogeneous people.
Pub Date: May 8, 1995
ISBN: 1-56279-072-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
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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