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THE TENT

Name: THE TENT
Author: Margaret Atwood
ISBN: 0-385-51668-1

by Margaret Atwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2006

If Atwood’s name weren’t attached, no publisher would bother putting this trivia between book covers.

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Top-of-the-head riffs, the majority occupying a peculiar middle ground between fiction and allegory, from the Canadian novelist (Oryx and Crake, 2003, etc.).

Most are a mere few pages, some are as short as a single paragraph, and all are as slight as their length suggests. Atwood’s sardonic humor flashes from time to time—“We’ve erected a few ruins, but they are not convincing, even from a distance,” mourns the inhabitant of an impoverished and remote fictional coastal community in “Resources of the Ikarians”—but occasional good lines don’t really redeem this odd amalgam of cranky musings (“No more photos. Surely there are enough”), slightly bent myths (Helen of Troy, married to a police chief, runs off to the city and gives interviews about women following their hearts in “It’s Not Easy Being Half-Divine”) and other peculiar workings of well-known material (“Horatio’s Version” of Hamlet, “Chicken Little Goes Too Far,” etc.). “The Animals Reject Their Name” and “Bring Back Mom: An Invocation” seem somewhat less weird, simply because they’re both in verse. Also reasonably readable are “Warlords,” a stinging depiction of society’s inherent violence, and “Winter’s Tales,” a funny portrait of an older narrator perplexing young listeners with faintly absurd recollections of the past (“there were no bare midriffs, and only sailors and convicts had tattoos”). But most of the longer prose pieces—longer meaning four to eight pages—are exercises in self-indulgence, from “Three Novels I Won’t Write Soon” (most readers will murmur “thank goodness” after reading it) to “The Tent,” which presumably is intended as a tribute to the creative process but merely annoys with its cloudy metaphors.

If Atwood’s name weren’t attached, no publisher would bother putting this trivia between book covers.

Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2006

ISBN: 0-385-51668-1

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
FOURTEEN DAYS
edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston

- BOOK REVIEW
OLD BABES IN THE WOOD
by Margaret Atwood

- BOOK REVIEW
BURNING QUESTIONS
by Margaret Atwood

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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.