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FOUR CORNERS

Name: FOUR CORNERS
Author: Kira Salak
ISBN: 1-58243-165-5

INTO THE HEART OF NEW GUINEA--ONE WOMAN’S SOLO JOURNEY

by Kira Salak ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2001

Exemplary travel-writing marred by less-than-enthralling ventures into the self’s interior.

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A luminously written, thoughtful account of a solo crossing of Papua New Guinea is also an uneasy mix of exorcism and exploration as a young writer wrestles with old anxieties while facing new challenges.

Though belonging to that contemporary genre of travel-writing in which self-absorption and naïveté often predominate, Salak’s story offers vivid and informative commentary as it describes a region whose interior was only first explored in the 1930s. New Guinea is still a place where cannibalism is rumored to be practiced—she visits a village of “Christian cannibals” in which women still wear grass skirts and the numerous tribes engage in blood feuds. Towns like Port Moresby, however, suffer from the usual Third World ills as gangs of unemployed men, the notorious “rascals,” regularly rape, steal, and generally run amok. As she describes her voyage up the Fly River, she visits a refugee camp for New Guineans who have fled the brutal depredations of the Indonesian army in neighboring Irian Jaya and talks to Pastor Carl, who wants her to tell the world what his people have suffered; stays with the occasional missionary family, who maintain typical suburban lifestyles in the middle of the jungle; and then after crossing the mountainous divide, rafts down the Sepik River on a leaky contraption made from canoes to revisit her past. Her childhood was unhappy: her atheist parents believed in self-reliance, and not love; she was shy and unsure of herself and thought travel would help her conquer her fears. Before setting out for New Guinea, she had traveled in Asia and East Africa, where in 1992 she was nearly raped as she journeyed through the war zone of Mozambique to Zimbabwe. But these physical tests of the spirit, as she comes to understand near the end of her journey, cannot offer the salvation she craves. It has to come from within, and she suggests that in New Guinea she learned “self acceptance—contentment.”

Exemplary travel-writing marred by less-than-enthralling ventures into the self’s interior.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001

ISBN: 1-58243-165-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Counterpoint

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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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.