In nine extraordinary explications — from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida to Ionesco's Dance of Death — Miss Oates investigates tragedy as literary form. She takes account of the criticism of Steiner, Abel and others who suggest tragedy can only exist within a fixed historical context; but she believes that the true content of a great work of tragedy is not history but "dreams, ahistorical dreams." The God of the past, bearing on human limitations, is redefined as "the furthest reaches of man's hallucinations." Within domestic order there is the wilderness; within the possible, the unthinkable. Miss Oates then turns to her models: the melancholy commentary on the pretensions of tragedy itself in Troilus and Cressida; the conquest of reality by "nature's own imaginings" in Anthony and Cleopatra; Chekov's wavering symbolism; Yeats' meld of human and inhuman in death and consummation; Mann's "hero," a role self-created; the shifting multiplicity of the absurdists; and the "terror of the white whale" dissolving good and evil and life itself. Miss Oates pays tribute to Dostoevski as one "who can leave nothing left unsaid," an echo perhaps of her own compulsion to (as Kazin has mentioned) exorcize her characters and ideas rather than invent. Here, however, she moves with brilliance and agility along the edge of impossibilities where "sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish," and endure Hamlet's bad dreams bounded in a nutshell.
Pub Date: March 1, 1972
ISBN: 0814906753
Page Count: -
Publisher: Vanguard
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1972
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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