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BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL

Name: BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO HELL
Author: Doris Lessing
ISBN: 0307390616

by Doris Lessing ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1971

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The briefing, one of a very few fixed points in Miss Lessing's self-styled "inner space fiction," takes place well above the clouds at a conference where Minna Err and Merk Ury (oh dear) decide to send some delegates to Hell, or Earth, to reclaim the planet from aggressiveness and irrationality and "separativeness." (The latter is an important contention in this driven polemic namely to the effect that it should not be "I.I.I.I." but We.) Those sent will be totally disassociated and will struggle and struggle to wake up, if at all. Like the at first unidentified man in Central Intake Hospital who is totally amnestic and spends the first third of this book cycling around and around and in and out and in and through a prismatic primordial world (from a raft at sea to the land to the ruins of a stone city). Eventually he will be enclosed in a "bell of light" where everything is fused and influenced by the pull of galactic forces. All of this section is accomplished in a violent blaze of lyricism. In the second half of the book the patient has been subdued and there are the attempts to bring him back — he's a professor — via his wife and friends and the diametrically opposed efforts of attending Drs. Y. & Z. Readers of The Four-Gated City will remember Miss Lessing's earlier projection of madness and strong attack against psychiatric techniques and resources. When last seen the professor has been returned to his work and family and one never knows whether or not he will retrieve what he has been trying to remember in these weeks of vertiginous submersion. As for the reader (this time certainly a more reluctant reader than Doris Lessing usually attracts), what will he remember from this imaginative spin-off of cosmic abstractions and sometimes arbitrary judgments? Perhaps only the primary message of the book that the individual is only a small part of humanity which is in turn only a small part of that grand design.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1971

ISBN: 0307390616

Page Count: 317

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1971

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALFRED AND EMILY
by Doris Lessing

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CLEFT
by Doris Lessing

- BOOK REVIEW
THE STORY OF GENERAL DANN AND MARA’S DAUGHTER, GRIOT AND THE SNOW DOG
by Doris Lessing

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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.