Hall (Here at Eagle Pond, 1990, etc.) has updated his 1977 book of literary gossip—memories, anecdotes, psychoanalytic clues- -beyond the original quartet of subjects: Dylan Thomas, Frost, Eliot, and Pound. He's now included Yvor Winters, Marianne Moore, and Archibald MacLeish as well. (There are two Moore-Hall interviews included too.) Though it is the aged poet whom Hall- -himself aging, no longer the young ancillary and apparatchik—now finds himself most interested in, the memories here are still angled upward: Hall the student or eager interlocutor of the renowned. The MacLeish/Winters chapter is especially forthright in its admission of Hall's hunger for models, no matter the age or station: ``Wanting to be as generous or affable as MacLeish yet wanting to be as rigorous as Winters, I totter from one example to the other, in temperament closer to MacLeish and in aspiration to Winters.'' The Marianne Moore piece is milkier—Moore's fastidious mystery harder to subsume personally. The additions here, then, hardly transfigure (or even much enlarge) the earlier edition—but many of the stories, especially the Pound and Eliot ones, remain honeys.
Pub Date: Aug. 19, 1992
ISBN: 0-89919-979-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1992
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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