Hikers may find it useful. Medieval scholars will scowl.
Where 14th-century English pilgrims once trod, an Alabama outdoorsman finds hotels, convenience stores, and plenty of other things that remind him—remarkably—of Chaucer.
Ellis has a knack for retracing famous journeys. He’s followed the Trail of Tears (Walking the Trail, 1991), ridden the path of the Pony Express (Bareback!, 1993), and shadowed Sherman to the sea (Marching Through Georgia, 1995). His most recent trek appeals to a sense of spirituality, a topic he tackles by linking the modern British landscape to the lives of the pilgrims who once walked to Becket’s shrine. The author’s trip, like the pilgrims’, takes seven days, each organized around a figure from The Canterbury Tales. Like Chaucer, Ellis comes across shopkeepers, gardeners, and religious folk. Some of them resemble characters in the Tales, but others do not, and readers may well feel the connections are weak. One can sympathize with Ellis when he describes the liberation he feels while traveling and how that freedom may translate into spiritual experience, but his asides relating his own hat to that of a pilgrim in the Middle Ages strain credulity, scallop shell or not. (Pilgrims, writes Ellis, wore scallops to display their piousness.) Moreover, it seems a strange oversight that a writer who constantly references his love of the wilderness and his Cherokee ancestry has very little negative to say about the fact that the forests and wolves that were the mainstay of a Chaucerian pilgrimage are now gone, replaced by pavement, towns, and tamed woods. Instead of using the past as a reference point from which to judge the present, Ellis spends a lot of time talking about how oddly and quaintly pilgrims lived. He doesn’t dwell on what’s been lost, even when he reaches his destination and finds a tourist trap.
Hikers may find it useful. Medieval scholars will scowl.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-44706-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
