Solid if unexciting fare.
A straightforward literary travel guide that takes us through Bangkok, Malacca, and other points east.
Terzani (an Italian correspondent for Der Spiegel and other European publications) opens his account with an odd anecdote: in 1976, a fortune-teller in Hong Kong warned him that under no circumstances should he fly in 1993, “not even once.” Taking the soothsayer at his word, he chose instead to take a leisurely tour of South Asia by train and car, and thereby “was obliged again to see the world as a complex network of countries divided by rivers and seas that required crossing and by frontiers that invariably spelt ‘visa’.” As it turned out, the fortune-teller was right: a German correspondent who took his place on the air circuit died in a helicopter crash. Duly chastened, the author reflected on his narrow escape (and other matters of life and death) as he traveled throughout the region, taking in the sights in Thailand, Singapore, and Ho Chi Minh City (and briefly venturing as far afield as Mongolia, Russia, and Italy). Terzani is a trustworthy enough narrator (albeit somewhat given to spiritual musings of a vaguely New Age bent), and he takes us through such little-explored landscapes as the Bolovens plateau of Cambodia (“the most heavily bombed region in the history of the world”) and Nanning (a Chinese city in which “the impatience between Chinese and foreigners is mutual, and in the Chinese it is now mixed with envy, anger, and an ever less concealed racial aspiration to settled old scores with outsiders”). This is a well-written account, but undistinguished from the usual run of travel narratives—even when Terzani salts his standard guidebook descriptions with (equally standard) PC denunciations of Western materialism.
Solid if unexciting fare.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60841-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
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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