This is the third Bitov book to reach us in Susan Brownsberger's exemplary translation (the novel Life in Windy Weather and short-story collection Pushkin House)—and just how shaggy and exhilarating an encyclopedia of Russian literature Bitov is becomes more and more manifest: He's like an anti-Nabokov. The Caucasian regions have been a staple locale of Russian classics since Pushkin: Tolstoy, Lermontov, Mandelstam—all of them found in the foreignness of the Caucasus the place out of time that ratified their artistic intuitions that writing renders both space and time suspect, that it is an activity that doesn't quite belong to either. On the face of it, Bitov is writing a ravished account of Armenian and Georgian integrities and natural beauties (such as the hewn-from-a-rock-face Armenian church, Geghard); as travel writing, the book has a subjective, swoony/goony quality that's appealing. But the literary echoes, and the very phenomenology of being in one place and not another, quickly develop into an argument for the writer as traveler even when sitting in his chair at his desk—without any real idea of what he's encountering, nor the absolute command of language to describe it. This sense of mysterious, giddy provisionality is both very Russian and deliciously individual in Bitov.
Pub Date: June 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-11883-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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