A sober, reflective inquiry into morality and values as practiced and passed down by six generations on a Vermont family farm. To fellow New Englander Thoreau's dictum that ``the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,'' Fish (English/Western New England College) offers a credible counterpoint: ``Man's craving for signs and wonders, his capacity for high endeavor, and his perverse susceptibility to boredom lead the less anchored souls to underestimate the value of quiet, orderly lives.'' Fish's grandmother and uncles, who run the family farm with typical Yankee rectitude, are nothing if not anchored. Unquestioning in their dedication to their land and livelihood, unflinching in their loyalty to one another and to a sense of moral and religious obligation, they stand tall in his boyhood memories as people of quiet, heroic dignity. Conflicted between the family tradition of duty and self-sacrifice and the more heady pursuit of self- discovery, the ``vagrant scion'' takes the road less traveled by: intellectual inquiry. By the time a midlife reckoning compels him to revisit the farm, the site of his moral education, he is both estranged from the family's virtuous life (which seems puritanical by contemporary standards) and unhappy with the gradual unraveling of the spiritual and ethical ties that bound it up. Without sentimentality, he conveys the complexity of farm work—the changing rhythms of a day, a season, a year; the diverse trades, from carpentry to financial management to butchery, that farmers must master. More strikingly, he manages to limn beautifully the richness of lives that appear on the surface dull and circumscribed. Nowhere does the probity and forthrightness of his forebears echo more truly than in his prose, which is artful and judicious. More than family history or mere coming-of-age memoir, Fish's first effort is a wise, clearheaded look back at a more selfless era that stressed community needs over individualism.
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-16565-3
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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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