Canadian author Rybezynski writes thought-provoking prose

The Most Beautiful House In The World. Witold Rybczyn-

ski/Viking Penguin.

name of one of your favorite writers, but Witold Rybc-

i T'S EMBARRASSING not to be able to pronounce the

zynski makes me feel like I've got a mouthful of Krazy

Giue.

| first encountered him in a col- lection of essays: Best Canadian Essays 1990 (Fifth House, $15.95), to which he contributed an ele- gant, witty and informative piece, part history, pait social commen- tary, on the evolution of the Vic- torian ‘front parlor’ into the con- temporary ‘living area.’

Finding he was a professor of architecture at McGill University and author of a book called Home, which promised more of the same, | made a mental note and promptly forgot about him and it.

By serendipity or synchronicity, a few days later | was poking through the publishers’ clearance shelves at Eaton’s Park Royal and there they were; paperback copies of Home by That-Guy-Whose- Name-!-Can’t-Say, for $1.99. | snagged one and found the prom- ise of the essay made good a hun- dredfold.

Home is more than just a book about domestic architecture; it is a critically incisive, funny cultural history of our ideas of personal liv- ing space and privacy from the Middle Ages to the present.

I gravitate toward bookstores the way some people can’t pass a bakery, so while ambling through Lynn Valley Centre mall recently, 1 inevitably found myself in the Reader's Retreat, staring at a name that rang a (silent) bell: Witold Rybezynski.

Restanrant

John Moore BOOK REVIEW

Hardcover copies of his jatest

hook, The Most Beautiful House in kee-craftsman builders is a

The World, were marked down from $22.95 to just $9.99, A bargain.

in this book, Rybezynski sticks close to the hearth, the world of private rather than public ar- chitecture, and once more his polymathic mind makes endlessly illuminating connections between subjects as diverse as Chinese geomantic pseudo-science, “feng shui,’’ the history of children’s games, wooden boat building, theories of what constitutes

“play’’ as well as what separates architecture from mere building.

What really holds this book together is its intimate focus. Some years ago, Rybczynski bought some land south of Montreal on which ta build a shed wherein he could build a boat. He and his wife now live, (you guessed it), in The Boathouse.

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The evolution of that practical shetter into permanent living space is the axis for innumerable digres- siuns that furnish the mind like comfortably arranged chairs and * Daily Tours June 10 Oc paintings compleie a room. . aly fours June 10 October

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lournalists who can do likewise are almost as rare (mea culpa), but if you're really interested in domestic architecture, scout the remainder shelves at Smithbooks and Coles for hardback copies of House by Tracy Kidder. This story of the upwardly-mobile New York couple who can finally afford to build their ‘dream house’ and their relationship with their Yan-

dramatic and deftly-written cau- tionary tale.

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