Borges says that the element that wears least well in writing issur prise. By that measure Edmund Wilson's works should prove quite durable. For the great enjoyment we receive from reading him comes from following a firm mind and a delicate sensibility as they encounter literary and historical texts, expounding on the "ideas and imaginings" within these texts "in the setting of the conditions which have shaped them," and then arriving at conclusions which are both sound and penetrating, but by no means startling. This critical method, precise and impersonal, ideally suited to the essay, seems however, not particularly apt for the memorial volume E.W. compiled from notebooks and diaries he kept during the '20's. Leon Edel remarks in his Introduction: "In the notebooks we meet for the first time the distinctively personal Edmund Wilson." Alas, that's hardly accurate. For the effect of the chronicle, though highly detailed, including revelatory glimpses of E.W.'s sex life (some of the material here was later incorporated in Memoirs of Hecate County), is a bit dim—an elegant but rather fragmentary panorama. Many famous names—people like Cummings, Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Frank Crowninshield, Elinor Wylie—pop in and out, but these portraits, as well as the "intimate" anecdotes, tend to be somewhat chatty and inconclusive. Wilson himself notes: "My reports are probably to some extent unfair, because it is always easier to tell about the ineptitudes and absurdities of other people than it is about similar occurrences on the part of oneself. The reader should make allowances for this and not allow me to give the impression that everyone else was gauche or ridiculous." There are some fine pictorial glimpses of the New Jersey shore, of Hollywood and Broadway and the Village; some moving data on family life; interesting travel sketches of the West Coast, the Midwest, Province town, Louisiana. Still the sort of"literature" that E.W. calls "the result of our rude collisions with reality" is not here.
Pub Date: May 23, 1975
ISBN: 0553028200
Page Count: 466
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1975
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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