Quaker activist Borton (Fat Chance, 1993, etc.), in a vivid and eloquent memoir of her life in three Vietnamese communities from 1987 to 1993, allows Vietnamese peasants, mostly women, to talk about their roles in the ``American War'' of 196573. ``After war,'' Borton quotes Nguyen Trai, a 15th-century Vietnamese poet, ``the people you meet differ so much from former times.'' Borton, who worked in a Quaker hospital in North Vietnam form 1969 to 1971, shows the truth of this old adage in her interviews with friendly peasants who played ferocious, sometimes heroic, roles as guerrillas in Vietnam's wars. Borton stayed in three very different communities: Ban Long, a former Viet Cong base in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam; Khanh Phu, a village of rice farmers in the less fertile Red River Delta of northern Vietnam; and Hanoi, ``Vietnam's largest village.'' In all three, Borton meets women with lovely names like Beautiful, Autumn, Second Harvest, and Flower who fought for the Viet Cong and the army of North Vietnam against French and then American troops. Now these women are trying to rebuild their lives in towns that still bear many scars: Bomb craters have been transformed into fish ponds, while peasants tilling fields are still often injured by long-dormant ``baby bombs,'' American anti-personnel weapons. Borton collects chilling stories of the devastation and terror wrought on tiny farming villages by American bombings and defoliants, and the horrifying long-term effects of Agent Orange. She reminds American readers that, like them, Vietnamese families mourn for ``wandering souls,'' persons missing in action from the war—except that in Vietnam, the missing number in the hundreds of thousands. Amid the plethora of literature about the Vietnam war, Borton's book is rare for its honest, straightforward look at the ordinary people we fought and their accomplishments and sufferings, and for its avoidance of overt polemic, moralizing, or recrimination.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-84332-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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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