Although this doesn’t cohere except on a grand thematic level, each individual essay has a considerable impact.
A collection of essays by a surgical pathologist Nadler, who deciphers the results of biopsies and other tissue samples in search of disease.
The subtitle is a bit misleading, for the eight essays collected here are really much more concerned with the impact of disease and aging on the individual patients Nadler encounters in his daily practice than in “the cellular world of biopsies” that is the stated aim of his study. In general, surgical pathologists rarely meet the actual people whose tissue they study, but Nadler, who has been living through the microscope for some 25 years, feels an acute urge for the community of doctor and patient—and that urge led to these stories. There is a downside to that decision; as he admits, “by confining myself to cells, I stay clear of the fiery trials of illness,” and the patients he writes about are suffering from terrible diseases—various cancers, sickle-cell anemia, spinal cord injury, Alzheimer’s, and the simple, inexorable fact of aging. An Alzheimer’s patient is described as “more than the sum of [the] tangles and plaques” of his distorted cellular world, and the best moments in this account are those in which Nadler is able to make us see the connection between cellular phenomena and human suffering. This is nowhere more clear than in the chapter on Comille, a frighteningly mature eight-year-old boy with sickle-cell anemia whose childhood has been an unending series of hospitalizations and a constant stream of pain. On the whole, the collection reads like the disparate collection of essays that it clearly is, but Nadler is an excellent and compassionate observer and an intelligent writer.
Although this doesn’t cohere except on a grand thematic level, each individual essay has a considerable impact.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-50416-8
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
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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