A nightmarish tale of political persecution in Communist China. In 1951, Wu (English/Univ. of Montana) left the University of Chicago to return to his native China and teach English literature. But the China that Wu returned to was deeply suspicious of intellectuals, and, two years later, Wu was denounced as an ``ultrarightist, a backbone element of the reactionary right wing of the bourgeoisie.'' What he actually seems to have been was only a naive, somewhat self-absorbed quasi-aesthete—one who tried to forget the humiliation and stress of his state-imposed public ``self-criticism'' by reading ``the Moncrieff translation of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past in the shaded stillness of the garden around my college house.'' But labeled a ``poisonous weed,'' Wu was sent for ``corrective education through forced labor'' to a state farm on the shores of Lake Xingkai, a thousand miles from his pregnant wife and young son. Transferred to the Third Branch Farm for Rightists and Juvenile Delinquents and fed clear turnip soup and sweet-potato strips, he nearly died of edema and starvation. Released to continue teaching, then reimprisoned, Wu was branded a reactionary ``cow demon'' during the Cultural Revolution, then was released again to join his family for reeducation by peasants in a tiny village, with his wife as sole ``ricewinner.'' In 1974, Wu was allowed to teach ``party-approved fiction'' to ``worker-peasant- soldier-students,'' and, in 1978, his name was cleared during a nationwide rehabilitation and he was allowed to return to real teaching. ``I came, I suffered, I survived,'' is how he sums up his experiences. An often heartrending portrait of a family and a life shattered by state paranoia, and of a world turned upside-down. (First printing of 25,000)
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1993
ISBN: 0-87113-494-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
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