bookshelf

SEEING VIETNAM

Name: SEEING VIETNAM
Author: Susan Brownmiller
ISBN: 0-06-019049-3

ENCOUNTERS OF THE ROAD AND HEART

by Susan Brownmiller ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 1994

bookshelf

Equal amounts of cram-course pedagogy and '60s reminiscences pepper this Vietnam travelogue by feminist journalist and novelist Brownmiller (Waverly Place, 1989, etc.). In 1992, just after the removal of US travel restrictions to Vietnam, Brownmiller went there on assignment for Travel & Leisure as a simple first-time tourist; she also went to encounter and make her peace with a country she knew only from its wartime images on television, which she helped to define while working for ABC news. From Hanoi to Saigon—with stops in Danang, Hue, and Quang Tri- -Vietnam's war scars, Soviet-style economic barrenness, and vibrant Indo-Chinese heritage commingle. Her discovery of traditional culture is the most successful aspect of the journey, whether describing Vietnamese cuisine, the water puppets of Saigon, or the antique pottery of Hoi An. Her trips to the obligatory battlefields and war memorials provoke in her culture shock and ultimately incomprehension. Comparing an armaments museum in Hanoi's Lenin Park to a recent antiwar exhibition at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, she pronounces the former more powerful art but is surprised by her guide's bitterness at the relics of a costly war machine in a country excluded from its neighbors' modernized prosperity. International businesspeople in restored French hotels, thriving hawkers of shoddy goods, and ecotourists visiting a bird sanctuary near the Cambodian border are all hopeful signs of emergence from the postwar limbo. Brownmiller's attempts to understand the Vietnamese experience of the war and current sentiments, however, are muddled by her own self-absorbed guilty flashbacks. In one egregious instance, as she leaves the Khe Sanh battlefield, she starts singing the sardonic ``Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag'' of Woodstock in front of her guides, who in turn strike up with a patriotic Vietnamese anthem. Although passable as postcard travel writing, Seeing Vietnam is more hopeful traveling than arrival at an understanding of a country's painful history and problematic future. ($25,000 ad/promo; author tour)

Pub Date: May 18, 1994

ISBN: 0-06-019049-3

Page Count: 256

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

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.