Good intentions and craft marred by sanctimony.
Wearing her essayist hat, novelist Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible, 1998, etc.) responds to the September 11th terror attacks with a collection addressing the wonders of life.
In an effort to “burn and rave against the dying of all hope,” Kingsolver offers a contemplation of how we are blessed in our lives and urges us to consider the planet we live on and those with whom we share it. Her first two essays disjointedly consider how the September 11th attacks may have come about and voice her distress over our wastefulness as a nation: “Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food.” She then moves on to document her love affair with nature in an account of her two residences, one in Arizona and the other in Appalachia, where she works while looking at beautiful views. While she stresses repeatedly how blessed she is to have these twin retreats, it's somewhat jarring in conjunction with a preceding essay in which she writes, “For most of my life I've felt embarrassed by a facet of our national character that I would have to call prideful wastefulness.” Kingsolver continues to rend our nation's collective garment as she moves on to discuss the scarlet macaw and habitat loss in general; freeing a hermit crab in the context of letting go of a “hunger to possess”; her daughter's chickens and “the energy crime of food transportation”; and why she doesn't have a television. All of Kingsolver's issues are worthy, certainly, but the work is made less palatable by what seems to be a naïveté that surfaces when the author (mother of three) makes such statements as, “I can barely grasp the motives of a person who hits a child.” Her best pieces—a discussion of adolescence addressed to her daughter; an essay on the difficulties of writing about sex—have a narrow focus.
Good intentions and craft marred by sanctimony.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-050407-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
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
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
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