A lively collection, on the whole, from a man of the world who is most comfortable on his own turf.
Portrait of the artist as a well-traveled sophisticate, unsentimental littérateur, and cranky film critic.
Very little gets past the narrators of Marías’ recent novels, The Infatuations (2013) and Thus Bad Begins (2016). They’re onlookers, life’s minor characters, bearing detailed witness to a much bigger story than their own. The author proves to be a similarly absorbed and intelligent noticer in this collection of essays and newspaper columns from the past few decades, albeit one sometimes boxed in by a tight space. Although there are longer essays where he flourishes, the pieces often feel a little claustrophobic, and many end when he’s just getting going. Early in the book, Marías keeps himself (and readers) amused writing about family history or Venice, a city whose residents live in a world unto themselves. “Their indifference and lack of curiosity about anything other than themselves and their ancestors,” he writes, “has no equivalent in even the most inward-turning of villages in the northern hemisphere.” The author is at his best writing about books and movies, despite a certain reactionary streak. He takes joy in deriding a profession divided between the self-destructive and self-absorbed. His own idea of an artist-hero is The Leopard author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, who spent his last days reading rejection slips for his only novel. Marías also lets us in on his own writing process: “I force myself to be ruled by what I have already written, and allow that to determine what happens next.” As a cineaste, he’s decidedly old-school; he worships the Western, adores Ann-Margret, venerates It’s a Wonderful Life and (his favorite) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. He may be the only critic alive who believes the 1970s were “the worst decade in the history of cinema.”
A lively collection, on the whole, from a man of the world who is most comfortable on his own turf.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-97211-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
IN THE NEWS
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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