A journey that loses its way on the road to significance.
The thin chronicle of a cross-country trip modeled on John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.
When Barich (A Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change, and the Fate of the Irish Pub, 2009, etc.) revisited the 1962 classic and decided it was ripe for an update, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Most readers remember the travelogue as comic in tone, but Barich found much of its social commentary not only bleak but prophetic. So he committed himself to a two-month, 6,000-mile drive across the country, avoiding cities and major highways as much as possible while trying to take the pulse of the country on the eve of a pivotal presidential election. Unfortunately for the reader, too much of what the author offers as discovery is obvious to the point of cliché. A California hippie in the 1960s who has spent nearly a decade in Ireland, he learns on his return to his homeland that many conservatives not only listen to talk radio but parrot the likes of Rush Limbaugh. “In an earlier century, they’d have been selling snake oil,” he writes of airwave propagandists. He finds an America overrun by chain operations and malls—“repetitiveness robs travel of its essence. There’s nothing to discover”—yet he also finds some good fishing here and there, some natural beauty (particularly in Colorado) and some tasty meals in regional restaurants. Most of the places he visits merit little more than a page, while some are dispensed in a paragraph. When he moves from the specific to the general, the results can be glib: “Often I think Mexicans know something I don’t. They seem to have an ease of being I envy. I can’t remember ever meeting a dour Mexican in California—nasty, yes, and even obnoxious, but never dour.” He sees challenges and contradictions in the American ethos, but ultimately proclaims that he is “more hopeful than Steinbeck.”
A journey that loses its way on the road to significance.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1754-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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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