Engaging prose and entertaining stories hampered by a lofty, overly cerebral premise.
An Anglo-Afghan world traveler searches his adopted Moroccan homeland for traditional stories to pass on to his children.
Shah (The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca, 2006, etc.), a gentle-voiced travel writer with a restless spirit, opens the book with a bang. Strung up by his feet in a Pakistani torture chamber called “The Farm”—into which he was thrown while attempting to make a film about the lost treasure of the Mughals—he distracted himself with thoughts of telling bedtime stories to his small children. Timur and Ariane were safely ensconced at home in the family’s sprawling, possibly haunted compound, Dar Khalifa, the Caliph’s house, which sits on the edge of a Casablanca shantytown where the author had moved his family in a fit of nostalgia for his childhood vacation spot. Shah’s thoughts take us back to Morocco, and his personal quest for authentic personal storytelling, which led him across the country and ingratiated him to a host of colorful characters. On the homefront, he introduces a trio of superstitious groundskeepers and two maids who competed for the affections of his toddler son. Outside of Dar Khalifa’s walls, the cast grew even more diverse. In Moroccan culture, particularly for a man with Shah’s curious blend of Eastern and Western sensibilities, it seemed that friends were around every corner—in the Café Mabrook, where the author quickly became a regular, in the barbershop and even in a small hut behind a cemetery. It was these friendships that fueled the author’s mission, taking him not only through the Old Medina of Casablanca, but also to Fez, Marrakesh and even deep within the Sahara Desert. Spurred by the writings of 19th-century British explorer and polymath Richard Francis Burton—he even stayed in Burton’s favorite Tangier hotel—Shah continued to search for an authentic legacy for his son and daughter. The author’s cultural detail is impressive, and his relentless fascination with all things Moroccan is inspirational. But the storytelling theme never quite unifies his anecdotes. More disappointingly, he never regains the raw energy of the opening torture-chamber episode where, it seems, the real story resides.
Engaging prose and entertaining stories hampered by a lofty, overly cerebral premise.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-553-80523-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
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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