Heavy-handed preaching by a self-appointed guardian of traditional midwestern values and environmental concerns. In these 12 essays, most previously published in The Ohio Review, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere, Sanders (English/Indiana Univ., Bloomington; Staying Put, 1993, etc.) seeks a moral and spiritual ``center'' based upon a web of familial, local, and environmental relationships. The sentiments put forth in essay after essay show a great and worthy concern for the sad state of the natural world but ignore the existence of human beings outside of the author's wife, children, and neighbors: There is no sense that Sanders feels himself at all a member of a more global community. While each essay is supposedly grounded in the details of Sanders's own life, in the majority these particulars seem like artificial constructs erected to showcase his didactic whining. There are, however, a few welcome exceptions. These are ``Imagining the Midwest,'' in which the literary and artistic weaknesses of the largest area in the United States are looked at clearly and unsentimentally, tracing the historically mixed feelings of writers, from Mark Twain to Jane Smiley, for their native soil; and ``Voyageurs'' and ``Letter to a Reader,'' in which Sanders's technique of examining the social and natural worlds in light of his personal experience and insight actually succeeds. ``Voyageurs'' recounts a canoeing trip with the author's daughter that took him through a range of emotions, from love to terror to fear for the disappearing landscape. ``Letter to a Reader'' follows Sanders's past as a writer, showing the influences in his life, from parents to pysics to Wendell Berry, as well as the origins of his love for small-town life and the environment, without ever straying into the soap-box type histrionics that plague so much of this book. Repetitive self-righteous indignation on behalf of the environment.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-253-32941-8
Page Count: 211
Publisher: Indiana Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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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