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NOW DIG THIS

Name: NOW DIG THIS
Author: Terry Southern
ISBN: 0-8021-1689-2

THE UNSPEAKABLE WRITINGS OF TERRY SOUTHERN, 1950-1995

by Terry Southern & edited by Nile Southern & Josh Alan Friedman ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2001

When you’re done, even if you feel you’ve read all you need about sweet drugs and pert body parts, it’s hard not to like...

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A darling of the postwar literary counterculture is honored in a tidy collection that makes coherent sense of what might have been a group of funny if disparate works.

Rather than reverting to chronology, Southern’s son (and literary executor) Nile and editor Friedman wisely divide the great man’s writings by genre (tales, new journalism, etc.) and subject (the film business, writing, etc.)—an arrangement that points out Southern’s strengths in each. Just as The Magic Christian and Easy Rider show his varieties of outrageousness, so do his short writings. The journalism (particularly his piece on working with “big Stan Kubrick”) reveals his ease at mixing tale-telling and corporate critique, while the letters, depending on your point of view, are either examples of fine verbal architecture or irritating self-involvement. His appreciations of other writers are personal and original, notably in his Paris Review interview with British novelist Henry Green and his love note on the weirdness of “Ed Poe” (as in Edgar Allan Poe). Of note to film historians is Southern’s go at adapting Arthur Schnitzler’s Rhapsody, A Dream Novel for the screen—the psychosexual drama Eyes Wide Shut would have been quite different if Kubrick had taken Southern’s tack of going “the comedy route.” As for sex and drugs, they waft throughout the collection, settling in as subject matter for such works as “A Conversation with Terry Southern and William Burroughs” and “Letter to George Plimpton: A Sports-Death Fantasy” (the latter involving ice cubes).

When you’re done, even if you feel you’ve read all you need about sweet drugs and pert body parts, it’s hard not to like Southern. He was big-hearted and irrepressible, an optimist of excess when it seemed such things were possible.

Pub Date: June 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-8021-1689-2

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE HIPSTERS
by Terry Southern edited by Nile Southern

- BOOK REVIEW
YOURS IN HASTE AND ADORATION
by Terry Southern edited by Nile Southern Brooke Allen

- BOOK REVIEW
TEXAS SUMMER
by Terry Southern

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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.