Sure to arouse envy in those, now gray, who neither tripped at home nor took the disorienting trip to the Orient: a facile,...
A self-styled seeker of Truth sends postcards from his stoned journey a generation ago.
Milwaukee native Tarnoff spent three youthful years in the days of Nixon and Jomo Kenyatta on the hippie trek from Bangkok and Chaing Mai to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris, Athens and Crete, Nairobi and Mombasa, Bombay and Benares, Kathmandu and finally to Bali. He lugged his guitar and, in a rucksack (certainly never a suitcase), his collection of harmonicas. He rendered the blues on the mouth organ at virtuoso level, he indicates. Ingesting copious quantities of pot and a bit of opium, he early on came upon verities like “guilt is good,” “people don’t know what jerks they are,” and “everyone is wrong about everything.” In his classic quest, Terry encountered fearsome ants, crazy bats, cockroaches in the loo, holy men, and con men. Swinging his pangi, he indulged in much bangi in his shamba. He became, in other words, at one with the natives as well as his fellow travelers. And he did even better with women. Our author bedded Emmanuelle, Eva, Amélie, Sigrid, Elizabeth, devoted Martine, and ever-present Annika. In the story of Terry and his pirates, of Terry and his bipolar parent, of Terry searching for manhood or at least a touch of wisdom, does love finally conquer? It’s a romance as much as a Beat Baedeker for yesteryear’s hipster hikers. It’s a picaresque tale of blues, drugs, and women, tinged, perhaps, with a hint of fantasy and a whiff of pathos—so what could be bad? Tarnoff is now a screenwriter.
Sure to arouse envy in those, now gray, who neither tripped at home nor took the disorienting trip to the Orient: a facile, vivid, novelistic yarn.Pub Date: June 14, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-32447-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
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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