Deficient in the cultural insights that would have enriched the memories.
In a series of color-drenched chapters accompanied by recipes, food and travel writer Narayan recalls growing up in India and studying in the US.
Place and taste take center stage, often at the expense of story, in a narrative focused as much on particular foods as on milestones in the author’s life. Born in South India, Narayan begins with the Hindu rice-eating ceremony traditionally held when a baby is six months old to mark the transition from liquids to solids. The baby is offered a mix of rice and ghee, the melted butter described in the recipe that follows as “the vegetarian’s caviar: slightly sinful, somewhat excessive, but oh so delicious.” The author describes her grandmother making vatrals and vadams before the monsoon, because these thin slices of vegetables had to dry to a crisp on the rooftop before they could be stored. At school Narayan traded lunches, even though as a vegetarian she could eat only the rice in the chicken biriyani swapped by a Muslim classmate. She recalls shopping in the produce market, visiting her grandparents, attending festivals, surviving adolescence, and achieving academic success, lyrically evoking the tastes and textures of a world where rice was still ground on a stone, pickles and chutneys were made at home, and milk was delivered daily at the door by the cow herself. Though appreciative of her heritage, Narayan wanted to study in the US, which her parents reluctantly allowed after she graduated from college. There she reveled in the freedom to study what she liked (sculpture and drama), to meet a wider range of people, and to eat (if not always enjoy) different foods. Narayan’s cooking skills stood her in good stead when she catered a dinner to raise funds for her tuition. Then her family began pressuring her to return and marry a man of their choosing; she reluctantly accepted, but imposed certain conditions.
Deficient in the cultural insights that would have enriched the memories.Pub Date: April 22, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50756-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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