A minor but charming addendum to 20th-century literary history.
Poet Field (Counting Myself Lucky, 1992, etc.) atmospherically depicts gay and avant-garde life in the decades following WWII.
His generation of bohemians, the author claims, were the last to reject any kind of fame or commercial success as “selling out.” They clung to poverty and artistic purity as they bounced from Greenwich Village to the Left Bank in Paris to Morocco, but their proudly unconventional odysseys too often ended in mental illness and premature death. The better-known names here—Frank O’Hara, Susan Sontag, James Baldwin, May Swenson—achieved varying degrees of mainstream renown; Field’s closest friends were more marginal figures. Typical in his self-destructive but oddly admirable eccentricity was critic and novelist Alfred Chester (the would-be Sontag spouse of the title), who had a brief moment of minor celebrity in the New York literary scene of the early 1960s before he descended into alcoholism and madness. Chester’s decline was sparked in part by the malevolent impact of time spent in Tangiers under the influence of Paul Bowles, one of the few people who gets a predominantly negative assessment from the author, who depicts Bowles as a self-protective vampire sucking his inspiration from the reckless acting out of both his wife Jane and Chester. In general, Field is gossipy and mildly bitchy but basically good-hearted as he profiles such now-forgotten figures as Gurdjieff disciple Fritz Peters, painter/friend-to-cannibals Tobias Schneebaum and poets Dunstan Thompson, Robert Friend and Ralph Pomeroy. He offers plenty of eye-openingly frank accounts of gay sex (penis size, orifice preference, etc.) and dish on who slept with whom. But Field also writes eloquently about his efforts to make his poetry more conversational and less literary, affectionately about settling down with lifelong partner Neil Derrick and shrewdly about the politics of literary bohemia. A touching final chapter about friends in the present-day Village reminds us that rebels get old too.
A minor but charming addendum to 20th-century literary history.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-299-21320-X
Page Count: 280
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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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