Here as in Trevor's other story collections, one spark of reality can shrivel the cocoons of quiet lives. "Angels of a kind we were" croons a husband-swapping exurban housewife, as she reconstructs that evening-at-the-Ritz when they were laughing, poor and young. Yet the fallen angel is not the speaker, but her best friend who within the "shell of middle age" just doesn't care that much when her husband discreetly goes astray: "You couldn't forever laugh among the waiters at the Ritz just because it was fun to be there." In another tale, a plain mouse seduced by the office rat reminds a back-street business woman of her 23 years of being used by the man she loves. Time after time, cruelty comes as naturally as the grass which is slowly obliterating the tennis courts restored for an elderly widow's last party: in the renunciation of parents by their young; in village bigotry kept alive by national hatreds; in the savagery of war. But there are those who can learn to last out despair, like the unloving couple joined in a shotgun marriage: "there was [now] nothing that could be destroyed, no magic or anything else." Even Trevor's least imaginative pieces are neatly joined; he offers biting insights as well as the sad echo of the nightingale which once sang in Berkeley Square.
Pub Date: June 3, 1976
ISBN: 0370106032
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1976
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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