A project for which there could scarcely be less demand: not just another telling of the numbingly well-documented life of Beat Generation warhorse Jack Kerouac, but one penned by the indefatigably irrelevant Beat crony Barry Miles. This completes the trilogy started with Miles’s clumsy biographies of Allen Ginsberg (1989) and William S. Burroughs (1993), only this time his subject wasn—t around to help him out with insights and information. Miles notes the obvious, that Kerouac’s —work is located in an uneasy limbo between fiction and memoir,— and mentions repeatedly Kerouac’s desire that his works should ultimately form a single epic saga. Yet he undercuts himself, on the one hand, by criticizing Kerouac’s work as inaccurate autobiography, and on the other by relying on the writings as a source of biographical detail. The result is a hash of conflicting perspectives. Aside from a prurient emphasis on Kerouac’s gay sexual forays, Miles offers little that’s new and much that’s absurd. Having established that Kerouac was a pathologically irresponsible, abusive, mixed-up drunk, Miles rants fatuously about Kerouac’s refusal to acknowledge his daughter: —Where was Kerouac when he should have been reading his daughter bedtime stories, sharing with her his love for words?— Miles claims that Kerouac introduced —a level of candour previously unknown in modern literature . . . at a time when real men were strong silent types who didn—t cry or even say very much,— yet he fails to provide any context or justification for such assertions. Identifying Kerouac’s never-revised, often meaningless ’spontaneous prose— as generated by a method —normally used for rapidly written pulps and romance novels,— Miles fails to distinguish between Kerouac’s lazy, amphetamine-fueled hubris and the more substantial, less volatile craft of the genre writer. One respects Miles only for admitting that huge amounts of Kerouac’s work are wretched. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-6043-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
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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