A collection that can’t be categorized as memoir or travel writing or literary criticism but cohesively combines such...
Place, identity and the limitations of language converge in this slim collection of illuminating and incisive essays.
In her debut novel, Faces in the Crowd, published in America concurrently with this volume, Luiselli writes of literary recognition as a “virus,” one that these simultaneous publications is sure to spread. If anything, these essays are more impressive in both their expansiveness and epigrammatic precision, as the young writer—born in Mexico City, prolific in her output and currently studying for a doctorate in comparative literature at Columbia—mediates between her scholarship and her personal experience. The collection begins and ends in a cemetery in Venice, with the author making a pilgrimage to the grave of the exiled poet in the opening “Joseph Brodsky’s Room and a Half” and then returning full circle with the closing “Permanent Residence,” which ends with a vision of her own tombstone, after an admission that “writing about Venice is like emptying a glass of water into the sea.” In between, she writes of other places—primarily Mexico City and New York—and maps, architecture and, always, books and authors. “Going back to a book is like returning to the cities we believe to be our own, but which, in reality, we’ve forgotten and been forgotten by,” she writes. “In a city—in a book—we vainly revisit passages, looking for nostalgias that no longer belong to us….Rereading is not like remembering. It’s more like rewriting ourselves.” Whatever she writes about, ultimately, she’s writing about language, exploring the possibilities of words as well as recognizing their limits: “Perhaps learning to speak is realizing, little by little, that we can say nothing about anything.”
A collection that can’t be categorized as memoir or travel writing or literary criticism but cohesively combines such elements and more.Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-56689-356-5
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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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