A chemist-turned-adventurer retraces the footsteps of polar explorers in some of the harshest conditions the earth has to offer. Observing the tired, sallow faces of his older scientific colleagues, Turk rejected a career in the lab for life on the land. His first adventure—kayaking around Cape Horn in homage to Sir Francis Drake—ends 50 miles short when he’s shipwrecked and nearly killed. Next, he and his girlfriend and eventual wife, Chris, tackle the grueling Northwest Passage inside the Arctic Circle, where winter oceans freeze from North America to Asia and summer thaws produce ice floes the size of Texas. They attempt the trek (first completed by Roald Amundsen in 1906) by rowboat, alternately dragging themselves across ice and rowing through open water. They fail; the relationship suffers. Turk doesn’t always or altogether enjoy his rugged travels. Still, he values them as manifestations of the independent lifestyle he craves: “I am not at peace with this adventure, but I’m afraid of myself if I abandon it.” In fact, Turk’s soul-searching is dual. He examines his motivation for adventure travel (for which he jettisons family life) and his inability to proceed wisely. Obsessively goal-oriented, he’s haunted by defeat. Faced with dangerous seas during the Cape voyage, he rashly pushes on instead of waiting out the storm, then repeats his mistakes on subsequent trips. Just when he seems ready to conquer his own foibles, he’s saddled with a dangerously selfish traveling partner on a dogsled trip across Canada’s Baffin Island. When the man leaves him stranded overnight in the Arctic without food, water, or heat, then quits without explanation, Turk must quit too. Finally, he and Chris successfully retrace the kayak migration of an Inuit band from Canada to Greenland, largely because she convinces him that discretion is the better part of valor. Genuine adventure and poignant self-exploration, too. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-019147-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
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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