An acute, idiosyncratic collection, full of what the author, at home at last, always liked best: fizz.
A preeminent reporter who specializes in terrific travel pieces (Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, 2001, etc.) reviews a half-century of literary snapshots in her considerable album and shows us the way we were—and the way we have changed around the world.
Morris presents an agreeably eclectic and untidy omnibus of articles written for The Manchester Guardian, Rolling Stone, etc. Starting with her scoop on the conquest of Everest and an early salute to Manhattan (comparable to E.B. White’s classic), the early reportage recalls the excellent WPA Travel Guides on a later, wider scale. Dispatches come from an aircraft carrier, a racetrack in Darjeeling, London of the performing arts, down under in Sydney, Ottawa in a Ruritanian mode, and a Welsh community in Patagonia. From city to savannah, Caribbean to Katmandu, Swiss chalet to West Point, the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem to the Gary Powers show trial in Moscow, she examines the values of the governments, the character of the people, the very intentions of the places themselves. If Pittsburgh is moved to Ohio or South America is demoted to a subcontinent, it matters not a whit, for impressions are better than dry fact and Morris has a canny eye for the diverting and telling detail that’s emblematic of places we may or may not know. When the early essays were written, Jan Morris, now a cosmopolitan lady of certain age, was James Morris. She challenges readers to find a difference in prose style after “what is vulgarly known as a sex change,” citing a page that marks the metamorphosis. As the decades pass, pieces tend to more length, with a vague, understandable sense of foreboding. Still, Morris maintains her ironist’s accreditations.
An acute, idiosyncratic collection, full of what the author, at home at last, always liked best: fizz.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-393-05208-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
IN THE NEWS
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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