At the crossroads between the past and the present, but central to the intellectual temper of our time, James Joyce stands with Mann, Eliot, Yeats, Bergson and Proust. He deserves a definitive and major biography- here accomplished by the critic, essayist and biographer of Yeats. Ellman, with enormous patience, has researched the incredible mass of material which Joyce has provided himself and provoked from others; and along with the critical material, the personal correspondence, he has also apparently interviewed every living person who knew Joyce. He has added a little new knowledge, dealing with his wife and with the prototypes of some of the characters in Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. The result is a complete account of that "simple middle class man", "a man of small virtue given to alcoholism"- these were Joyce's own words. His raillery, atheism, pride, wit and Rabelaisian vigor are already well known; the book is most illuminating when it deals with Joyce's intellectual aims and accomplishments and this portrait of the writer is certainly just and balanced as well as sympathetic. It will probably answer all curiosities about Joyce, and supplements the works themselves, which still provide the truest portrait of the artist. It is an important literary biography.
Pub Date: Oct. 22, 1959
ISBN: 0195031032
Page Count: 968
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1959
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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