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TRANSIT OF VENUS

Name: TRANSIT OF VENUS
Author: Julian Evans
ISBN: 0-679-41637-4

TRAVELS IN THE PACIFIC

by Julian Evans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1992

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Fast on the heels of Paul Theroux's best-selling The Happy Isles of Oceania (p. 525) comes this equally polished but far more jaded view of Pacifica by English journalist Evans. While Theroux senses cosmic mysteries in the vast Pacific, Evans sees creepiness and rot. Perhaps his venture is doomed at the outset, inspired as it is by magazine photos of Peacekeeper missiles arcing over the Pacific. But travel appeals to him, albeit for reasons often left unsaid: ``The consolation of travel is the control it offers to cowards: you get up and leave; you abandon people....'' He boats into sleazy New Caledonia on the tail of a storm that blows ``with pentecostal force'' (an apt image, for Protestant missionaries swarm over these islands). There, he finds rumors of mermaids, and political strife that puts banana republics to shame. In dreary Fiji, with its villages of cinder block and tin, he meets caved-in Europeans and remarks that ``funerals are more enjoyable than weddings by a long way.'' On to New Hebrides, where ``cockroaches the size of moles swaggered across the floor'' and where he is jolted by the ``unblinking, solemn gravity of the natives'' and by kava, a local hallucinogen. With Western Samoa comes kerosene-poisoning and a noxious dose of heat, flies, and lassitude, but also beautiful women with fetching tattoos and the grave of his beloved Robert Louis Stevenson. Tonga, Gilbert Islands, Marshall Islands, and onwards—a roll call of sunburnt specks of dirt rife with poverty, promiscuity, religious fanaticism, and junk food. It hasn't always been this way, as Evans shows through frequent descriptions of earlier visits by Francis Drake, James Cook, Herman Melville, and the like; but, now, decay seems the order of the day. Maybe Evans should have stayed at home. We'd be the losers, though, for his mordant, Dantean travelogue offers a number of grotesque, cleverly crafted delights.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-679-41637-4

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUNDLING BOY
by Michel Déon ; translated by Julian Evans

- BOOK REVIEW
MY FATHER’S KEEPER
by Norbert Lebert & Stephen Lebert & translated by Julian Evans

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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.