A fine book about books that will appeal to readers of Manguel’s previous work.
Graceful essays on books, reading, and the subversive possibilities of ideas.
Late in this gathering of occasional pieces, Manguel (A History of Reading, 1996, etc.) takes issue with Auden’s famous pronouncement that poetry makes nothing happen. “I don’t believe that to be true,” Manguel writes. “Not every book is an epiphany, but many times we have sailed guided by a luminous page or beacon of verse.” Generous in his praise of life-changing books, Manguel notes his own epiphanies, from discovering the horrible power of anti-Semitism as a child in Argentina (where, he tells us, he used to read aloud to the blind writer Jorge Luis Borges) to exploring the almost-occult history of gay literature. Some of Manguel’s essays will send thoughtful readers to the shelves to seek out underappreciated writers, such as G.K. Chesterton (whom Manguel praises for his humor and vigorous prose) and Mario Vargas Llosa (the Peruvian novelist and sometime politician whom Manguel does not hesitate to label one of the 20th century’s greats). Some of these pieces, crafted as introductions, magazine articles, and talks, are slight, some even peevish—such as Manguel’s diatribe against Anglo-American book editors (“Before going out into the world, every writer of fiction in North America and most of the Commonwealth acquires, as it were, a literary back-seat driver”). But most are well-considered celebrations of the pleasures of culture, from museum-going to walking the streets of a major capital, from turning the pages of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles to finding an unanticipated ally in a writer one has newly discovered.
A fine book about books that will appeal to readers of Manguel’s previous work.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-601265-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
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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