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FOR THE LOVE OF IRELAND

Name: FOR THE LOVE OF IRELAND
Author: Susan Cahill
ISBN: 0-345-43419-6

A LITERARY COMPANION FOR READERS AND TRAVELERS

edited by Susan Cahill ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

Forget the travel angle and just enjoy this as a sampler of notable Irish prose and poetry, old and new.

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A strained marriage of Irish literature and travelogue.

Anthologist Cahill (A Literary Guide to Ireland) discovered Ireland on her honeymoon and has kept returning to it ever since, both as tourist and editor. The present work, in which her aim has been to select writings that evoke specific places and which she describes as “a feast of writing and landscape,” unfortunately just doesn’t jell. Starting in Dublin, she moves successively through the provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and finally Ulster. Cahill includes well-known writers (such as Swift, Joyce, Beckett, and O’Casey) as well as newer, less familiar names (the poet Eavan Boland and the columnist Nuala O’Faolain, for example). She introduces contributors with brief essays on relevant aspects of their life and work, prefaces each selection with a short explanation of its context, and then appends a traveler’s guide to sites connected with each excerpt. The guides are quite explicit, including bus route numbers, driving directions, and detailed walking tours, with instructions on when to turn right or left and what buildings to look for. Some writers, such as Joyce and Synge, are represented by multiple selections, others by a single short piece. Not surprisingly, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes is included to evoke Limerick, and Belfast is recalled in a piece by Brian Moore. Less accountable is her choice of a passage from her husband Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization that features a prayer by St. Patrick. Adventurous souls following the traveler’s guides will find themselves in Neolithic archeological digs at Lough Gur, and at such unlikely tourist spots as Roddy Doyle’s north Dublin working-class neighborhood and the rough Cork streets of Frank O’Connor—as well as the picturesque Aran Islands, the mountains of Kerry, and Galway Bay.

Forget the travel angle and just enjoy this as a sampler of notable Irish prose and poetry, old and new.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-345-43419-6

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001

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.