An enjoyable and good-hearted romp, despite low stakes and some prosaism.
A seasoned globe-trotter’s travel memoir of her journey down the African continent, spanning 10 months, 17 countries and myriad adventures.
After years of travel, O’Kane and her husband have settled into a lucrative career of home renovation when a Jeopardy! answer (“What is ‘the Amazon’?”) spurs their dormant wanderlust. They plan a largely overland trek from Casablanca to Cape Town, buying seats on a truck captained by an Australian man known only as “the Mechanic.” Destined for Cape Town with this cantankerous escort and eight fellow passengers, they cross Morocco and the perilous Western Sahara, then transit Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana before deciding to tackle the rest of Africa on their own. This road-trip portion of their journey is studded with amusing conflicts among the truck-mates, who include an alcoholic and a pair of “tongue-swabbing” middle-aged lovers. O’Kane is an endearing and enthusiastic narrator, whose observations of her fellow travelers, as well as the native Africans, are both generous and simplistic. During a month in Ghana, O’Kane contracts malaria, battles an extorting bus driver and finds her dinner choices so unimpressive she opts for vegetarian fare for a few days. Though affable and compelling, O’Kane’s storytelling is episodic, without much overarching or internal conflict, and at its weakest, reads as a “Gidget Goes to Africa.” Leaving Ghana, the couple witnesses the tumultuous lead-up to an Ethiopian election, observes a Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal in Arusha, recovers from a nastier strain of malaria at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro and is mugged in Johannesburg. Transcendent moments within the natural landscape punctuate the action, and O’Kane portrays these with reverence and vivid detail, if a sometimes erring choice of tone and pacing. A spectacular moment of flying over the Zambezi’s Victoria Falls is undermined by its brevity, and O’Kane’s admission, “I almost tossed my cookies.” Her bountiful interactions with animal life are the most affecting in the narrative, with notable moments in an elephant orphanage, fleeing a charging hippo, and a toe-curling insect-larvae incident.
An enjoyable and good-hearted romp, despite low stakes and some prosaism.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4637-4179-2
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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