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THE WHOLE FIVE FEET

Name: THE WHOLE FIVE FEET
Author: Christopher R. Beha
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1884-4

WHAT THE GREAT BOOKS TAUGHT ME ABOUT LIFE, DEATH, AND PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING ELSE

by Christopher R. Beha ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2009

The personal and family stories are almost always gripping; the comments about great books, less so.

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Deciding to spend a year reading the entire 50-volume set of the Harvard Classics, Harper’s assistant editor Beha discovers things—some touching, some banal—about the best-laid plans of mice and men.

The author interlaces several stories in his debut. The main thread comprises even smaller ones—his reactions to the texts. He also tells about the Classics’ editor, Charles W. Eliot, and the genesis and publication of the volumes, about his family and—most prominently—about his illnesses: Hodgkin’s lymphoma (diagnosed while he was in college), Lyme disease, hives and a torn meniscus. A medical mess much of the time, Beha nonetheless persevered, reading while ill, while visiting relatives and while flying to England with family. (As he read a volume of Elizabethan drama, many of his fellow passengers watched Nicole Kidman in The Invasion.) There are moments of bizarre amusement—such as when the author, with his mother in the waiting room, makes a deposit in a sperm bank—and wrenching loss (the death of a favorite aunt). Beha is most effective when discussing the fragility of life, the certainty and uncertainties of death, and how the various writers he read dealt with it—or didn’t. He is moved by Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey,” struggles through the two volumes by Darwin, ponders the problems of translation (so many of the originals were not in English), finds the grimness in Grimm, lingers overlong with Don Quixote, says very little about some texts, quotes favorite passages from others and finds himself changing as the year advances. He has a number of epiphanies—some rather ordinary: “life was teaching me about these books just as much as the books were teaching me about life.” Finally, he resolves to remain a reader in the nonliterary contemporary American culture he comes close to condemning.

The personal and family stories are almost always gripping; the comments about great books, less so.

Pub Date: May 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-8021-1884-4

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ECCO ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SHORT FICTION
edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Christopher R. Beha

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.