An odyssey of recovery by a woman literally struck by lightning. In the summer of 1991, Ehrlich (Islands, The Universe, Home, 1991, etc.) was hit by lightning while out walking with her dogs on the land around her Wyoming ranch. Ehrlich has not written another near-death testimonial but a peripatetic probe into the nature of the healing of the human heart. Suffering from ventricular fibrillation (chaotic heartbeat) and a ``fried'' sympathetic nervous system (which is responsible for stimulating the heart muscle and raising blood pressure), Ehrlich is rescued from bumbling, ineffectual treatment in Wyoming that might have killed her and delivered into the hands of a heart specialist/healer named Blaine in Santa Barbara, Calif. The drama of her shaky recovery is more gripping than the final two-thirds of the book, which meanders from musings about various cultural readings of lightning, the heart, and death to thoughts about the healing power of water over lightning and fire as Ehrlich treks to London, then zigzags back and forth between California and Wyoming, then on to Alaska before finally coming to rest off the Santa Barbara coast after a symbolic dive into the ocean. At times the prose is a pedestrian record of events: retrieving her favorite dog or following cardiologist Blaine on his rounds. At other times, Ehrlich strains to give her experience more depth and insight by interspersing the mundane with, say, Ecuadoran myths about the connection between being struck by lightning and becoming a shaman. Ehrlich may want these myths to be ``enlightening,'' but she is at her best when she writes from her own feelings: ``Lightning had entered me twice and now I was a burnt shell with nothing in me that could attract fire.'' An emotionally compelling, if erratically beating, tale about the transformative power of a brush with death by lightning.
Pub Date: June 6, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-42550-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
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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