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SYDNEY

Name: SYDNEY
Author: Jan Morris
ISBN: 0-394-55098-6

by Jan Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1992

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Clean-limbed description of the great port by Morris (O Canada, p. 307, etc.). Morris now sees Sydney as one of the most important cities of the world, ``not the most beautiful...but the most hyperbolic, the youngest in heart, the shiniest.'' Sydney's classy new Opera House is a world-famed structure, and the city's suburbs have spread so vastly that the metropolitan area now twice exceeds that of Beijing and is six times as large as Rome. The people of Sydney are generally seen, Morris says, as ``an esoteric subspecies of Briton- -sunburnt, healthy, loud, generous, misogynist, beery, lazy, capable, racist and entertaining, strutting along beaches wearing bathing caps and carrying banners, exchanging badinage or war memoirs in raw colonial slang, jeering at unfortunate Englishmen at cricket matches they nearly always won.'' The natives of Australia have lived near Sydney Harbor for 20,000 years, she tells us, though Western-style civilization did not begin until Cook of the Royal Navy arrived in 1770. Not long after, British convicts were exiled there in great numbers and found a tough, lonely life, thinking themselves, Morris says, almost on the moon. The author finds an epiphany in the aborigines, a sense of transience or yearning that ``in some way charges the place'' and that moved D.H. Lawrence to detect in their eyes and their visionary tie with the land the ``incomprehensible ancient shine.'' Nonetheless, Morris still feels Sydney to be ``on the edge of some more metaphysical blank...It does not seem an introspective place....[and] has never been overburdened with spirituality.'' Sydney's one unassailable satisfaction: ``the beauty of its harbor....[In] the velvet sensual darkness...I sometimes feel myself haunted by a sense of loss, as though time is passing too fast, and frail black people are watching me out of the night somewhere, leaning on their spears.'' The old dazzle still at work.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-394-55098-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ALLEGORIZINGS
by Jan Morris

- BOOK REVIEW
THINKING AGAIN
by Jan Morris

- BOOK REVIEW
IN MY MIND'S EYE
by Jan Morris

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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.