A beautifully written tribute to natural beauty, addressed by a tree-hugging hippie dad to his Generation X son. The last time we followed a father and son traveling this profoundly was in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. While Pirsig called on technology in his search for the sublime, Sanders remains very much the steadfast Romantic anti-technologist (evoking shades of Thoreau and Emerson). This philosophical book’s occasion involves his very ’90s son Jason, who, at 17, is weary of hearing his father criticize every aspect of our current, coarse lack of interest in the environment. After all, it is hard to keep up with such a sensitive and erudite father, and so Jason ends up walking ahead of his dad on their excursion to the Rocky Mountains. When he accuses the elder Sanders of darkening their world unduly with bleak complaints, the author realizes that his son is partly right to carp about all of Sanders’s carping. He then tries to make up for it, panning persuasively for hope in nature. He peppers his prose with quotes from a wide range of writers, especially the great naturalists and Romantics; cites examples of ecosystems or species that are now actually rebounding; and wins from Jason a temporary truce. Sanders truly communes with the natural world, reveling in its simplicity and wild charms. Still, despite the book’s premise as a response to the Jasons of this world, Sanders fails to reckon seriously with his boy, just as he grows maudlin about his daughter’s very conventional wedding. For Sanders, as for Keats, beauty is truth. But his amoral vision makes him a more cogent artist than teacher—except for die-hard Romantic readers.
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1998
ISBN: 0-8070-6324-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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