On Board Noah's Ark

186 pp. "Bemelmans is always surprising us by appearing in new roles- this time as a yachtsman. To be sure the "yacht" was an ancient pilot boat, for which he hired a succession of odd captains, misfits in their roles. One could have been happy always to stay in port; another to take successive bits of machinery apart; others were sea pirates, brigands of sorts; and his final acquisition was a star graduate of the naval academy who had never been to sea. Then there were the people on other boats- particularly the desolate Italian aristocrat hopelessly in love with his recalcitrant and beautiful American wife, who hated boats. There were the people in the harbor towns-helpful and otherwise. There's the irrepressible Bemelmans' type of zany humor, exaggeration and occasionally poignant perception. It is a mad adventure, this Mediterrean wandering, from Antibes, where he acquired the boat, to Portofino, to Naples and Capri and Ischia, and back again, winding up close to disaster with a storm at sea. The drawings throughout are Bemelmans at his most observant, witty and charming..."