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THE BRIDE OF THE WIND

Name: THE BRIDE OF THE WIND
Author: Susanne Keegan
ISBN: 0-670-80513-0

THE LIFE OF ALMA MAHLER

by Susanne Keegan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1992

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Steadily intelligent, musically aware, sympathetic but objective life of the wife and goddess of Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, novelist Franz Werfel, and a handful of geniuses who loved her unstintedly. Keegan's Alma Mahler towers above Francoise Giroud's recent Alma Mahler or the Art of Being Loved (p. 30), which was a brief but empty exercise. This biography from journalist Keegan (wife of historian John Keegan) is finely researched, more than twice as long as Giroux's, packed with rich cultural detail, and gives a far more complex and redoubtable Alma. As daughter of Emil Schindler, an excellent Viennese landscape artist, Alma breathed art and artists. A songwriter, she early chose a destiny as love-goddess to geniuses, allowing herself to be adored, kissed, and who knows what else by many rising composers, usually teachers twice her age. Emil died while Alma was still young, and her aging suitors were dad's replacements. So when she met 40-year-old Mahler, she found the daddy of her dreams, surrendered before marriage—a big thing in those days—and went to the altar pregnant. Gustav demanded she give up songwriting, one composer in the household being enough, and devote herself to him. This regimen took strongly, and Alma gave Gustav more attention than she did their children. But, feeling neglected during Mahler's working hours as Vienna's great opera director and leading cultural figure, she wandered, came back, wandered more. During her third marriage, to Werfel, she made it clear to him that he could never be a great German writer since he was Jewish—then made sure he wrote moneymakers, including the ``Catholic'' novel The Song of Bernadette. A classy woman—even as an old fatty hooked on benedictine. (Eight pages of photographs—not seen.)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-670-80513-0

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992

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.